THE BRIDGE-FIEND 
A Book of Consolation for Incurables* 




«The Ladies Dearly Love Their Heated Little Post-Mortems' 



IHE BRIDGE- FIEND 



1^ 



A CHEERFUL BOOK FOR BRIDGE- WHISTERS 



BY 

ARTHUR LORING BRUCE ^.^^^^^ 



V 

« 4 
♦ 



NEW YORK 

MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 

1909 



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Copyright, 1908, igog, by 
Street & Smith 

Copyright, igog, by 
Moffat, Yard & Company 



Published October, igog 



CI.A251450 



TO MISS N. I. 

OOMEWHERE, lurking In the underbrush 
^^ of this sportive volume (and trembling 
and chattering wath fear lest you should dis- 
cover Its hiding-place) there is a cruel and 
murderous sentiment, hateful In the sight of 
him who vv'^rote It dov^m. I was made to in- 
timate, by some demon of perversity, perhaps, 
that an absolutely perfect bridge partner had 
never -existed. Such creatures — so runs the 
calumny — are, unhappily, extinct upon our 
troubled planet: they are purely mythical, like 
the angels or the minotaurs. For this false- 
hood I humbly crave your pardon. 

To you, then, perfect partner — mythical 
only in so far as you partake of the nature of 
the angels — I dedicate this little bundle of 
bridge memories. 

A. L. B. 



FOREWARNING 

To the confirmed addict a cheerful book 
on bridge needs no apology. The sixty or sev- 
enty existing works on the game are so tech- 
nical, truthful and forbidding that the author 
hopes to see this carefree volume — because 
of its levity and partial untruthfulness- — 
hailed by every incurable, as a very present 
help In case of a double. Its purpose is not 
to instruct but to distract. Nowhere, for in- 
stance, in the following pages, will there be 
found those most spirit-blighting of earthly 
words, " The penalty for a revoke Is three 
tricks torn from the screaming and revoking 
player." I take a certain pride, also, in stat- 
ing that, for the first time since the inven- 
tion of the game, that baneful and bitter 
" Table of Correct Leads " has been black- 
balled and excluded from a work on bridge. 

To all bridge players — whether Incipient, 
chronic, violent or Incurable — this volume 
ought to bring consolation and relief. 

With its aid, wild and ferocious partners 



FOREWARNING 



may be subdued; cheats may be detected and 
out-cheated; feminine " bridgers " may be 
made almost honest, and " post-mortems " en- 
tirely done away with. A single perusal of 
its magic pages will infallibly produce — in 
even the most savage player — a feeling of 
serenity, gratitude and calm. 

I feel that my apologies are due my readers 
for the disjointed character of the work, and 
for the maturity of some of my anecdotes. 

My thanks are due to Messrs. Street & 
Smith by whose disinterested kindness and 
courtesy I am permitted to reprint as much of 
the volume as appeared, originally, in the 
pages of " Ainslee's Magazine." 

My thanks are also due to my friends, R. 
F. Foster, C. S. Street and R. G. Badger for 
many kindnesses and benefits bestowed and to 
Louis Fancher, who, notwithstanding his bit- 
ter and unreasonable hatred of the noble game 
of bridge, finally consented to design for me 
the cover and frontispiece of this little book. 

A. L. B. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Forewarning ix 

First Appearances of the Devastating 

Plague i 

Wild Partners I Have Met . . . . I2 
A Few Cheering Anecdotes .... 39 
The Matter of Gains — and Losses . . 54 

In Gay Paree 76 

Clever Cheats and Cheating .... 94 
More or Less Serious — and Historical . 118 
The Ladies — Angelic and Otherwise . 142 
The Hateful Process of Disgorging . .160 
Royal and Aristocratic Bridgers . . .169 
Tragedies, Surprises and Horrors . . .181 
A Test Hand — Useful in Discouraging 

THE Boasters 194 

Girls 207 

Success With Bad Partners . ,. . .218 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Bridge in England . 230 

A Tangle of Yarns 249 

In Society 264 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

CHAPTER I 

FIRST APPEARANCES OF THE DEVASTATING 
PLAGUE 

During the past few years I have been 
amazed at the spread of bridge in America; 
not only in the principal cities, but in the 
smallest villages and towns as well. In 
the last six months I have seen listed on 
booksellers' catalogues over sixty books treat- 
ing of the game. This is a , considerable 
mass of literature when it is remembered 
that sixteen years ago the game was unknown 
in this country or in England. 

I wonder how many of my readers know 
anything of the origin of bridge? I may 
say that I have found it almost impossible 
to secure correct information about the early 
history of the game, but, after reading many 
I 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

forbiddingly dry treatises on the subject, I 
lean to the opinion that it originated in Tur- 
key. Russia and Greece have both claimed 
it, but I think it more than likely that the 
Turks were the first people to play it. 

In Russia it is called " biritch," but just 
why, nobody seems to know. There is no 
such word as biritch in the Russian language, 
so that many are of the opinion that the word 
is a roundabout corruption of some word in 
use in Turkey. 

Just as Persia was, they say, the first home 
of poker, so, I am disposed to think, was 
Constantinople the birthplace of bridge — a 
conclusion which any one who has ever played 
the game with a lurk will be inclined to 
share, for the Turks have a really marvel- 
ous genius for the game. I feel sure that the 
average Turk has about twenty per cent, 
more insight into cards and card-games than 
the average Englishman or American. 

In Turkey and, indeed, throughout the 
East, cards are played with a quickness and 
brilliancy that are rarely met with elsewhere. 
Americans have always regarded poker as the 
one game of cards in which lying, joking, 
2 



FIRST APPEARANCES 

bluffing and petty deceptions are not only 
permissible, but amusing. Were we to prac- 
tice the same tactics in playing bridge, our 
adversaries would certainly consider us 
sharp, and, probably, dishonest. Now the 
Easterners play bridge exactly as we play 
poker. They study a man's eyes ; the twitch- 
ing of his hands; his hesitation, and all the 
little personal signs that might give infor- 
mation as to the contents of his hand. I 
have heard many Europeans say that they 
did not like to play bridge with Easterners 
because of these trying little peculiarities. 

I remember a particularly sad case of a 
Turkish diplomat in Washington who came 
to this country and played most brilliant 
bridge. He had, however, a provoking 
habit of looking you steadily in the eye ; talk- 
ing, in an exaggerated way, about the value 
of his hand; studying the way you sorted 
your cards and being a little too keen about 
the score and the play of the hand. This 
gentleman went to Newport, and his system 
of play roused a good deal of gossip there, 
until finally he was branded as a cheat, when, 
as a matter of fact, he was merely playing 
3 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

bridge as it was universally played in his na- 
tive land and precisely as we play poker in 
America. He shortly afterward left Amer- 
ica and has never appeared here since. 

It was, I learn, during the year 1894 that 
bridge was introduced into London by Lord 
Brougham, who brought the game back with 
him from an extended foreign tour. 

Lord Brougham's account of the event Is 
curious and interesting. Soon after his re- 
turn to London he went into the Portland 
Club, which is probably the best-known card- 
club in the world. The Portland at that 
time was given over exclusively to old-fash- 
ioned whist. His lordship sat down to play 
a friendly rubber and, when It came his turn 
to deal, forgot to expose the trump. At his 
next deal he again forgot to turn the last 
card. His friends, who had known him for 
years, made a mental memorandum that his 
lordship was beginning to lose his memory. 
He explained his carelessness by saying that 
he had been playing so much " bridge " that 
he could never remember the exasperating 
convention of turning the trump. This re- 
4 



FIRST APPEARANCES 

mark led to his explaining the game in de- 
tail to his friends. 

From this insignificant beginning bridge 
has spread and spread until it is now the 
most popular card-game in the world. 
There Is to-day hardly any *' straight " whist 
played at the Portland; bridge has entirely 
replaced It. The Turf was the second Eng- 
lish club to experiment with the game, and 
from that time on the fever spread through 
the English clubs very rapidly. 

In 1895 the Portland Issued Its famous 
" Laws of Bridge." This was translated 
and adopted as the standard guide to the 
game in most of the cities of Europe and 
even In Constantinople, the city of Its reputed 
birth. 

I believe that there Is good ground for 
the assertion that America was Introduced 
to bridge before England, for it Is certain that 
the late Henry I. Barbey explained the game 
to his friends at the Whist Club In New York 
as early as the beginning of 1894, probably 
a month or two before Lord Brougham ex- 
plained It at the Portland. 
5 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

A little later in the year Mr. Barbey had 
arranged an incomplete little table of rules 
and conventions of the game, which he pub- 
lished for private circulation, and, in 1897, 
the game had so far grown in favor at the 
Whist Club that it issued the first complete 
code of bridge laws to be published in this 
country. 

The late Henry Jones, popularly known 
as " Cavendish," who was probably the mas- 
ter mind of whist in England and who has 
done more than any one man for that game 
(with the possible exception of Hoyle) was, 
at first, bitterly opposed to bridge. He 
poked all manner of fun at the game. He 
said it was ridiculously simple and a bore; 
but, before his death, in 1899, he was com- 
pletely converted to it and ended by saying 
that there was " no game of cards in the 
world wherein skill, sound judgment and in- 
sight into the adversary's methods will meet 
with more certain reward than they will in 
bridge." 

" Cavendish " explained the difference be- 
tween the two games as follows: A new 
mode of deciding the trump; the varying 
6 



FIRST APPEARANCES 

value of the tricks and honors; the right to 
double and redouble the value of tricks ; play- 
ing a third hand as dummy; a new system of 
scoring; the addition of a fifth honor. 

In America, bridge has made giant strides. 
It has invaded, seemingly, every grade of 
society, and has, like a devastating fever, laid 
low the rich and the poor, the believer and 
the skeptic, the proud and the humble. In 
Washington, the throne of empire has itself 
been threatened. The President has even 
gone so far as to say cruel and dreadful 
things about the game. Not so the Secretary 
of the Navy, however, for Mr. Meyer is an 
expert and enthusiastic devotee of the game. 
He is, indeed, an international player, and, 
in Russia, Italy and England, his game has 
been for years the subject of enthusiastic 
comment by the natives. Indeed, his name 
has become hnked with the game, in a man- 
ner which, though trivial, threatens to become 
permanent. This fact is worth a word or 
two of comment in passing. 

A favorite play of the Secretary's, and one 
which he is always certain to indulge in If 
the opportunity offers itself, Is to play, let us 
7 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

say, a queen up to an ace, jack,, in dummy, 
and " let it ride." This, to his opponents, 
looks like a pretty trap set against the king, 
while, as a matter of fact, the king is all 
the while safely tucked away in the secretary's 
hand. 

This play, or any similar play — like the 
jack up to ace, king — while the queen is in 
the player's hand — has become generally 
known as a " George Meyer finesse," and the 
term threatens to become as universal as, let 
us say, the term " Yarborough " for a hand 
without an honor, or as the word " double- 
ton " to denote a lead from a two-card suit. 

I may add that the fever of bridge In 
America has just about reached its height and 
I am curious to see if there will be a gradual 
diminution of interest in the game. Ping- 
pong lasted a year, diabolo two, bicycling 
five; bridge has lasted fifteen. How much 
longer will it endure? It is worth mention- 
ing, in this connection, that straight whist has 
survived two centuries, only to be jostled, if 
not totally displaced, by bridge. 

Nearly two hundred years ago Lady Mary 
Wortley Montague wrote to a friend from 
8 



FIRST APPEARANCES 

Bath, where she had gone to take the wa- 
ters — presumably for spleen : 

I am bored to death. I hear nothing but the 
eternal questions, " What's trumps ? Who's to 
play?" 

The whist fever did devastating work dur- 
ing all of the eighteenth and nineteenth cen- 
turies in England. Indeed, it must have 
been more prevalent in English society than 
bridge is at the present time in America, if 
such a thing were possible. 

I have heard many people say that bridge 
has killed the pleasures of society. The for- 
mality, punctilio and chivalry of it have, they 
claim, been swept away by this pestiferous 
game. 

With all the emphasis and eloquence of 
which I am capable, I rise to say: "No! 
Ten thousand times no ! " 

Reader, can you remember the formal and 
gloomy dinners In New York about fifteen 
years ago before bridge had come to bless 
and brighten them? Do you recall the 
agonized hours you spent at them? What 
terrible things they were I Twenty ladles 
9 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

in tiaras; twenty gentlemen in stiff, straight, 
high collars. Course after course of dis- 
guised food products ; then the gossip among 
the ladies and the long, black cigars among 
the men; the taxing talk about stocks, golf 
and pohtics. Then — most terrible of all — 
the meeting of the sexes in that stiff and im- 
pressively formal drawing-room; the chande- 
liers blazing, the heat incredible; the bore- 
dom insupportable; those awful Louis 
Quinze chairs; those forced tete-a-tetes and 
that general atmosphere of constraint and for- 
mality until the carriages were called and the 
lights extinguished. Can you say that bridge 
is a social curse, after remembering the tor- 
ture of those solemn gatherings? 

Now, thank Heaven, the picture has been 
changed. Small dinners — eight or ten — 
a very few good things to eat, turnover col- 
lars, liqueurs with the ladies, and bridge and 
chatter and laughter and comfortable chairs 
and cigarettes and — best of all — go home 
when you want to. 

This is, to be sure, the point of view of 
a player. For a non-bridger I can imagine 
nothing more maddening than the social 

lO 



FIRST APPEARANCES 

tyranny of bridge. My advice to the man 
who dines out In New York and cannot or 
will not play bridge Is — suicide ! A few of 
these forlorn and melancholy spirits still grace 
the dinner-tables of the rich but their lot is 
worm-wood and their sufferings must be ex- 
cruciating. They are pariahs at best — lost 
souls, supernumeraries. 

Take bridge away from New York society 
and it will become — what? An "Elsie" 
book, without Elsie I 



II 



CHAPTER II 

WILD PARTNERS I HAVE MET 

An international card-player was once 
asked, in his club, if he could name an ideal 
partner at bridge. For a long time he went 
over in his mind the endless procession of 
men whom he had played with in the smoky 
club card-room and finally answered: 

" No ! There isn't such a thing. An ideal 
partner, one without hateful mannerisms and 
annoying idiosyncrasies, is, like perpetual mo- 
tion or the limit of space, inconceivable. 
There is not a known specimen in the British 
Museum in London or in the Smithsonian In- 
stitute at Washington." 

A peppery, red-faced old gentleman, who 
was reading a racing-guide in the corner of 
the library and smoking a long, black cigar, 
was then appealed to. His face assumed an 
added crimson when the question was pro- 
pounded to him. 

12 



WILD PARTNERS 



" Yes," he said, after a pause, " I knew 
one m Bombay. Stop a minute, though; I 
remember now that he had a damnable habit 
of whistling whenever he played a winning 
hand." 

A youngish gentleman (sallow and callow) 
declared that he didn't know much about it, 
but if there were such a freak of nature he 
was absolutely certain that It wasn't a woman. 

A fashionable, globe-trotting bachelor, 
who, while the discussion had been raging, 
had sat twirling his mustache, drew up his 
chair to the self-appointed cross-examiner, 
lighted a cigarette, asked the waiter to " take 
the orders," and mildly tried to stem the 
tide. 

"If you will excuse me," he went on, " I 
must beg to differ with all of you ; particularly 
with Reggie here, who has dared to animad- 
vert against a large body of defenseless and, 
in some cases, guiltless women. As a matter 
of fact, I have played bridge in nearly every 
country of the civilized world and I have met 
with only three perfect, irreproachable and 
immaculate partners in my entire life — and 
all of them were women." 
13 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

Incredulity was written large on the faces 
of the jury. 

" As nobody asks me to explain and as 
you all seem to be absolutely averse to listen- 
ing further, I shall, all uninvited, continue 
with my narrative," said the man of fash- 
ion — " and at some length." 

" When I was secretary in Spain I chanced 
to be a good deal In Barcelona and played a 
lot of bridge at a charming club on the Ram- 
bla, that most delightful of all the world's 
thoroughfares. One afternoon I had an alter- 
cation with two gentlemen in the card-room. 
They were quarrelsome and boorish men at 
best. I could not help wondering why it was 
that all partners at bridge were so tiresomely 
irritating. I paid up my losses, determined 
never to play bridge with them again, took a 
drink of heavy Spanish wine, and went to my 
rooms to change my things for dinner. When 
I had bathed and finished dressing, I found 
that I had ten minutes' leeway before leaving 
for my dinner at Sefior G's. It was early 
springtime and I determined to idle about on 
the streets until it was time for my carriage 
to arrive. 

14 



WILD PARTNERS 



" When I reached the Rambla I was fairly 
transported by the beauty of the scene. The 
hghts, the pretty women, the enchanting cos- 
tumes of the ladies, the odor of the restaur- 
ants, the fresh green leaves on the trees, the 
soothing effect of my bath, the fragrant win- 
dow-boxes of flowers and the soft southern 
air all helped to make me serenely happy. I 
sat down on a bench and lighted a cigarette. 
All was fairy-land, brightness, youth and 
dreamful ease. 

"I soon fell — very naturally — to pon- 
dering upon the beauty of the Spanish 
women. Imagine, if you can, my surprise 
when a woman, tall, heavily veiled, and 
bearing in her arms a mass of yellow roses, 
sat down on the bench beside me and hesi- 
tatingly addressed me In the most perfect 
French. 

" ' Will you,' she murmured hurriedly and 
softly, ' do. me a very great service ? Will you 
come with me In my carriage, do as I wish 
you to do, ask me no questions, and go when 
I tell you to go ? ' 

*' I explained that politeness to my hostess 
at dinner prompted me to say ' No,' but that 
15 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

the dictates of my heart most certainly 
prompted me to say ' Yes.' 

" Politeness, of course, went by the board 
and we were soon leaning back in the cush- 
ioned brougham. I noticed that we were 
speeding toward the newer part of the city." 

" Is this going to be a very long story? " 
asked the red-faced gentleman with the rac- 
ing-guide. 

" It was to be," said the bachelor, " but I 
shall take your hint and make it as short as 
possible. Well, we soon arrived at a deuc- 
edly impressive palace and were shown, by 
an army of servants, into a charming little 
salon where sat two very beautiful women In 
decollete dresses. I was presented to them 
by my companion, who, when uncloaked and 
unmantled, stood before me as quite the most 
glorious being that I had ever beheld. 

" One of the ladies was an Aragonese, one 
was from Valencia and one from Toledo. 
They were all grandes dames and all spoke 
delightful French. It was only then that my 
mysterious companion announced the favor 
which she wished me to grant her. I was to 
play three rubbers of bridge — one with each 
i6 



WILD PARTNERS 



of the ladies. At the conclusion of the seance 
I was to announce which of them was, in my 
opinion, the most perfect partner. I was told 
that a great deal hung on my decision, but 
what this great deal was I could not possibly 
divine or fathom. 

" I assented, naturally enough, and played 
the desired three rubbers. There was abso- 
lutely no fault to be found with any of them. 
The ladies and I all kept separate scores — 
by request of the hostess. They all played rap- 
idly, but not too rapidly. They did not hum 
tunes or tap on the table with their fingers. 
They made no mistakes. They were never 
dejected by defeat or elated by victory. They 
smiled sweetly ; they did not go into post-mor- 
tems after the hands; they did not complain 
when I questioned a lead ; they were, in short, 
perfect partners. I felt that there was some- 
thing uncanny In such perfection, in so much 
ease and quietude and skill. ' Is It,' I asked 
myself, ' a dream ? I shall apply to this sit- 
uation an infallible reagent — the supreme 
acid test. I shall know, once and for all, if 
I am sane or raving. / shall add up the 
scores! If they are correct I shall know, to 

17 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 



an absolute certainty, that this Is not Spain 
but fairy-land, for,' I argued, ' it is inconceiv- 
able that three women should score three rub- 
bers without a single error — particularly In 
the honor column. Such a feat is unknown 
on our planet. I took the score-blocks and, 
to my amazement and consternation, the 
scores were all of them absolutely correct. 

" ' Ladies,' I cried, arising, ' you are all 
perfect players and perfect partners. There 
is nothing to choose between you. I suspect, 
though, that this Is all a base deception, a 
devilish piece of magic and black art. You 
are Impostors, wizards, furies, harpies, 
witches ! ' 

At this they all arose, fluttering and crowd- 
ing about me In their furbelows and laces as If 
to lay hands upon me. I was aware of the 
perfume of their bodices and the dim hum of 
their voices. Finally I was overcome with 
the absurdity of my position and opened wide 
my eyes — only to find myself on my bench 
In the Rambla, ten minutes late for my dinner 
and surrounded by a group of curious women 
who had stopped their promenade at the spec- 
i8 



WILD PARTNERS 



tacle of a gentleman in evening clothes asleep 
on an iron bench in the Rambla. 

" Gentlemen, these three ladies were the 
only perfect bridge partners that I have ever 
met — or ever expect to meet." 

At the conclusion of the bachelor's narra- 
tive the rubicund gentleman with the racing- 
guide hurriedly swallowed his cocktail and 
flew from the club with traces of indignation 
blazing on his face. The other listeners con- 
tented themselves with picking up their even- 
ing papers, and, in absolute silence, glaring 
at the bachelor with sullen and disapproving 
eyes. 

Let us now go over In our mind all the bad 
partners that we have ever met. The assem- 
bly Is, naturally, a large one. Rabelais' cele- 
brated list of games is as nothing to it. 
Homer's catalogue of the ships sinks into 
pitiful insignificance beside It. For purposes 
of reference, let us number the better-known 
types — up to thirty, thus : 

( I ) The lady who has forgotten her 
purse, but will surely send you a check to- 
morrow — if she happens to remember it. 
19 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

( 2 ) The telephone fiend who really would 
not dream of interrupting the rubber, but, 
" as this is a long distance call, I really ought 
to see who it is — so you will please excuse 
me, won't you? " 

(3) The superstitious man who Is con- 
stantly calling for fresh cards, or changing 
his seat, or walking three times around his 
chair, or placing some magic charm on the 
table beside him. 

(4) The ruminative animal who gazes In- 
tently at the ceiling when it is his turn to play, 
as if seeking inspiration from some Invisible 
Yogi, or else listening to the call of a tuneful 
bird hidden In the branches of a gigantic tree. 

( 5 ) The whistler, hummer, tapper, kicker, 
swayer and drummer. 

(6) The hog who pounces Into the seat to 
the left of the dealer so as to rob his partner 
of the first deal. 

( 7 ) The man who will never stop playing. 
(This gentleman is a positive first cousin to 
the negative gentleman who always refuses to 
play more than one rubber.) 

(8) The gloomy creature or fatalist who 
is always pursued by bad luck, who tells you 

20 



WILD PARTNERS 



heartbreaking things about his poor cards, 
and remains plunged in despair until the 
horrible agony is over. 

(9) The woman who " perks up " when 
she has a good hand — laughs, chats and 
makes merry. 

(10) The so-called gentleman who 
writhes, groans and turns in his chair when 
his partner leads a card that does not fit in 
with his particular hand. 

(11) The idiot who sprawls on the table 
and holds his cards so that every one must 
see them. 

(12) The man who always wants to know 
the score — and his three brothers : The 
first who insists on looking back at the last 
trick and examining it carefully as though 
every card were new to him ; the second who 
always asks the trump ; and the third who In- 
cessantly wants to know whether or not the 
trick is against him. 

(13) The tea-and-mufHn crank who wants 
to play bridge, tell a story, smoke a cigar, 
butter a crumpet, read the paper and drink 
tea at one and the same time — with only one 
mouth and a single pair of hands. 

21 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

( 14) The " gifted " player who has never 
read a book on bridge, does not know the 
leads, and simply plays by " common sense." 

(15) The cataleptic trance-medium who re- 
fuses to play until he has rubbed his forehead 
and until eons of time have rolled their torpid 
lengths into the abysses of eternity. 

(16) The nagger. This gentleman is 
usually an arguer, bristler, growler and 
gloater, as well as a " naggleton." 

(17) The curious maiden who, when 
dummy, insists upon peeking at the hands of 
the leader and third hand. 

(18) The person who hesitates unduly be- 
fore making the trump or after the question, 
"May I play?" 

(19) The tricky and artful player, who 
overfinesses, leads false cards, and, by his 
craft, leaves you absolutely in the dark as to 
what he really holds. 

(20) The selfish animal who plays only 
for his own hand and never for yours. 

(21) The doubter, who always watches 
you as you jot down the score — just to make 
sure that he is not being rooked or done out 
of his honors. 

22 



WILD PARTNERS 



(22) The being — usually a woman — 
who Inevitably claims an honor or two that 
she did not hold. 

(23) The "book" player who plays en- 
tirely by rules — usually rules that don't hap- 
pen to govern the hand at issue. 

(24) The fiend who doubles spades on 
nothing but faith, hope and stupidity. 

(25) The fingerer. This strange creature 
has a curious habit of pulling out a card, put- 
ting it back in his hand, pulling it out again, 
putting it back, etc., ad infinitum. 

(26) The man who can't count thirteen. 
(There are half a million school children In 
New York City alone who can correctly count 
thirteen, but only a very few card players are 
similarly gifted.) 

(27) The belligerent, defiant, excitable 
and warlike partner who has blood In his eye 
and is out to do serious damage to his ad- 
versaries. 

(28) The partner who, even if you score 
a grand slam, is sure to point out a way by 
which you could have made another trick. 

(29) The agreeable partner. (As we 
have pointed out in the beginning of this chap- 

23 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

ter, this Is a purely mythical creature, like 
an angel or a minotaur.) 

And finally there is 

(30) the depraved wretch who, as soon as 
he catches you in a revoke, leans over the 
table and grabs three tricks from your pile 
without asking your pardon or permission. 
(It is related that King Canute ordered a 
courtier hanged for checkmating him at chess. 
What would the seashore king have done to 
this detestable creature? Hanging, or even 
boiling in oil are deaths too blissful and fra- 
grant for him.) 

It Is certain that bridge is the supreme test 
of breeding. If you ever are fortunate 
enough, dear reader, to come upon a pleasant 
partner at bridge, you may be certain that he 
Is a man of breeding, of good family, of 
gentle birth, and of unimpeachable manners. 
Curiously enough, many men of breeding are 
insufferable partners, but it is also true that 
they are more often agreeable partners than 
those men who have not had similar advant- 
ages in birth and training. 

The word " etiquette " was, I am Informed, 
not known to Doctor Johnson. I may add 
24 



WILD PARTNERS 



that it Is practically unknown, to this day — ■ 
at the bridge-table. Some one has wisely said 
that all bridge-partners are idiots, while only 
a few of them are gentlemen. 

As to etiquette, I take the liberty of point- 
ing out to the bridge boor that It Is hardly 
good form: 

( 1 ) To draw a card from his hand be- 
fore it is his turn to play. 

(2) To revoke a second time in order to 
hide his first revoke. 

(3 ) To try and raise the table-stakes when 
the three other players are satisfied with 
them. 

(4) To hesitate In his play In order to 
show his partner that he might have played 
differently, and perhaps with as good results. 

(5) To hesitate, when third hand, about 
doubling a no-trump make, simply because 
he has a good heart suit. (Penalty — ten 
days at hard labor. ) 

(6) To slap a card on the table as if to 
say to his partner: "There! That's the 
suit I wanted." 

(7) To make remarks about the play of 
a hand when he Is merely an onlooker, 

25 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

(8) To claim the rest of the tricks until 
such a claim is beyond dispute. 

(9) To play a winning card and then 
immediately draw out another card from his 
hand as if to say: "Partner! That's the 
best ! Don't trump it." 

(10) To frown or sigh or groan when he 
has drawn an indifferent partner. (Penalty 
— thirty days. ) 

(11) To ridicule or gloat over the mis- 
plays of his adversaries. 

(12) To reach over and grab three tricks 
for a revoke from the revoker's stack. 
(Maximum penalty — public guillotine or 
gallows.) 

A nice sense of honor and a kindly con- 
sideration of the feelings of others will sug- 
gest, to any well-bred player, scores of other 
points to avoid, but the above are some of the 
most glaring instances of bad taste constantly 
seen at the bridge-table. It is really surpris- 
ing to note how often a partner will fail to 
observe some vital point of etiquette at bridge. 

Partners are, as a rule, hke the insane. 
They are sane except on one subject, but on 
that subject they are hopeless, perverted, in- 
26 



WILD PARTNERS 



curable. I know one very charming player 
who, in every point, respects the feelings of 
others; nobody could be more well-bred and 
delightful, but, so soon as the cards are 
placed in the wrong position for the next deal, 
he becomes petulant and aggressive, and his 
wrath is unappeasable. 

In private life we do not loudly proclaim, 
to our friends and acquaintances, their weak- 
nesses and shortcomings. 

We do not say: " Bessie, you are an un- 
utterably stupid woman," " George, you are 
not only dull of comprehension but an incur- 
able congenital idiot into the bargain," " Har- 
ry, you are a blank, blank, dash, semi-colon 
and two interrogation points," but In bridge 
it sometimes seems as though our only object 
were to browbeat our friends, wound their 
feelings, brutalize and badger them on every 
possible occasion. We all have our faults at 
bridge. My own particular vice Is to throw 
the cards on the floor and call for fresh packs. 
I must also admit that, during my long runs 
of bad luck, I become alarmingly cynical and 
sour. A sullen despair somehow seems to 
possess me. But we should all earnestly 
27 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

strive to improve and be as the saints are — 
" blameless and without guile." 

There are two or three little anecdotes con- 
nected with bad partners which are, perhaps, 
worth quoting, as they contain a certain modi- 
cum of humor. 

To begin with, there are two stories about 
the first division — as arranged in my list of 
thirty horrors and abominations — the lady 
who has forgotten to bring her purse. 

I once played with such an one for a few 
rubbers, and we, as partners, had lost about 
ten dollars each. Knowing well her failing 
and hoping to head off her demand for a loan, 
I asked her, half humorously, if she had any 
money to lend me, " as I am," I added, " un- 
fortunately without funds." Her only an- 
swer was to look at me quizzically, smile, turn 
her golden reticule inside out, and exclaim 
laughingly, " Chicane ! " 

The second story is also at my expense. I 
had won twenty-seven dollars from a very 
rich woman, who had made the usual remarks 
about her purse, a check to follow to-morrow, 
" so sorry," etc. 

" But," she added thoughtfully, " you must 
28 



WILD PARTNERS 



give me a memorandum of the amount, and, 
if I forget to send it to you immediately, I 
want you to promise me that you will remind 
me of it." 

I smilingly assented and gave her a pen- 
cilled memorandum of the amount. Sad 
weeks rolled by. " Nit check " — as the late 
Mr. Baxter would have said. 

One evening, at the opera, the same charm- 
ing lady told me a terrible scandal about a 
man who owed her fifteen dollars at bridge. 
Now twenty-seven dollars is not a very large 
amount, but, when it has been — for nearly 
two months — owed to you at cards, It as- 
sumes, somehow, gigantic proportions. I 
thought of my lady's request to be reminded, 
and laughingly told her that she herself had 
owed me nearly twice fifteen dollars for six 
weeks ! 

Mortification, dismay, horror, and doubt 
were all flashed at me from those lovely, in- 
nocent eyes ! She finally explained that there 
must be some mistake, as she remembered 
writing me a letter in which her check had 
been enclosed. To cut the story short, I told 
her that, while she had once owed me twenty- 
29 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

nine dollars, I was sure that I should find her 
letter and the check among the papers on my 
desk. 

The next day, to my horror and despair, 
I received a letter from her dated eight weeks 
back, together with a check similarly dated, 
and a little note explaining that the letter and 
check, though written ages since, had lodged 
in a corner of her portfolio. " And," she 
added, " you will see by your own memoran- 
dum that the amount was not twtnty-nine dol- 
lars, but tvftnty-seven dollars." 

I had unintentionally exaggerated the 
amount by two dollars, and I can't help sus- 
pecting that the lovely lady, to this very day, 
still believes me to be something of a liar and 
a rascal. 

Apropos of class twenty-two, in my list of 
bridge pests. 

There is, in Pittsburg, a lady whose only 
failing at bridge is that she constantly claims 
to have held the ten-spot of trumps, when the 
honor score is under discussion. 

It Is a sort of obsession with her. The 
claimant's name is Rebecca X. Her little 
subterfuge is so well known In Pittsburg that 
30 



WILD PARTNERS 



this particular honor is always called, among 
her circle of intimates, " the Rebecca." 

" I had ace, king, queen, jack; who had the 
Rebecca?" Such remarks as this are fre- 
quently heard in Pittsburg, and I have even 
heard the term used in Atlantic City. Soon it 
may be prevalent in Cleveland — and per- 
haps all over the country. 

Reader ! Have you a Rebecca in your 
family — or on your calling list ? 

Apropos of bad partners, I may add that 
I have played bridge with a multitude of in- 
conceivably bad players, but I have never yet 
met one of them that would take a handicap. 
How strange this is! In tennis, in pigeon- 
shooting, in bicycling and in billiards, handi- 
caps are very generally offered and taken. 
An offer of a handicap at golf or at any other 
game of the sort is never taken as an insult, 
but directly you offer to give a man odds at 
bridge, he instantly and indignantly refuses. 

The secret of the mystery Is two-fold. 
First: Every player in the world rather 
" fancies " his game. He thinks himself a 
far better player than he really is. Second: 
Games like billiards, court-tennis, etc., are 
31 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

purely games of physical deftness and skill, 
whereas bridge Is largely a matter of intellect 
and reason. It Is frightfully humiliating to 
acknowledge ourselves mentally inferior to 
another; but, somehow, it Is not quite so hu- 
miliating to admit our physical Inferiority. 

No welter-weight would challenge Jack 
Johnson to fight twenty rounds in an open 
ring, but, at bridge, any bantam is ready to 
" take on " any heavy-weight at any time, in 
any club cardroom, and always on absolutely 
even terms. 

This, perhaps, is the secret of the joy of 
bridge. We are all nearly perfect — in our 
own eyes. When we are told by others that 
our game is nothing but the worst sort of 
bumble-puppy, we cast upon them a pitying 
"look, satisfied that they are poor, misguided 
Imbeciles at best, too stupid to recognize fla- 
grant genius when they meet with It. 

Whenever there Is a gulf bet\^een two part- 
ners, the rubber Is bound to become a bore. 
Nothing breaks up a game so much as one or 
two or three players who are greatly out- 
classed by the fourth. But when two good 
players thoroughly understand each other 
32 



WILD PARTNERS 



there can be nothing prettier than to watch 
them play partners against two sHghtly infer- 
ior players. Their cards appear, somehow, 
fairly to talk. Every card seems to have 
its mysterious double meaning — the one the 
obvious or visible meaning, the other a sig- 
nificance altogether veiled and esoteric — ex- 
cept to the chosen few. One discard will 
murmur " Follow me," another will whisper 
" Partner, avoid me, for I shall bring you 
ruin." The eight spot of spades Is led and, 
presto, it reveals to the leader's partner the 
exact position of every spade in the pack. In 
and out the cards seem magically to weave 
through the warp of the dummy; escaping 
danger, inflicting wounds, gliding like serpents 
through the high cards In the maker's hand, 
and carrying everywhere a message, a pur- 
pose, a desire ! To the born whist player the 
message of the cards is easy to read, but to the 
solid, unimaginative, " rule " player, more 
than half of the whispers of the cards remain 
totally unheard and undreamed of. 

At the beginning of the eighth trick a good 
bridge player can usually place the remaining 
cards with an almost mathematical certainty. 
33 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

In some hands the fifth trick will mark the re- 
maining cards beyond peradventure. I have 
seen it tried, and successfully, over and over 
again. After the eighth trick, there are, 
broadly speaking, no rules. There are, then, 
nothing but facts. 

When we watch such fine American players 
as Mr. Elwell; Mr. Street; Mr. Foster; Mr. 
Dodson, the actor; Mr. Charles Schwab and 
Mr. Harry Ward we become convinced that it 
is not merely skill that these men possess at 
cards, but a certain inborn genius, a thing 
which no study, alas, will ever bring to us; 
a sense, an instinct, a gift — like an ear for 
music or the Imaginative and intuitive sym- 
pathy of a great poet or novelist. 

Opposed to such natural card geniuses as 
these are the great lawyers, the great Intel- 
lects, the successful men of affairs, who study 
bridge year after year and seem, at the end, 
to be no nearer perfection than when they 
commenced playing. Here Is an example, 
culled from a collection of thousands of simi- 
lar blunders by intelligent men and women. 

I was playing a very close rubber on the 
Via Goito, in Rome, with Baron R., an Ital- 
34 



WILD PARTNERS 



ian nobleman, as a partner. He was one of 
the leading economists and financial authori- 
ties of the day and had been an under minis- 
ter of finance in King Humbert's time. He 
had played bridge for nearly four years. We 
were eighteen all on the rubber game and 
hearts were trumps. We each had three 
cards left In hand. The baron held the ace 
and queen of hearts (trumps) and a losing 
club. The king and two other hearts were 
held somewhere against him. We had taken 
six tricks and it was his turn to play. Dum- 
my, who was to play after him, held three 
losing cards and no trump. Now It seems 
almost incredible that a man of parts, an ex- 
minister, a writer on finance, could be In any 
doubt as to what to play at such a crisis. By 
throwing the lead with his losing club the lead 
must come up to his ace and queen of trumps 
and we must make two tricks, or sixteen 
points, and the rubber. If I had the winning 
club, and It was not trumped, we could make 
three tricks, but two tricks were staring him 
In the face, as certain as death Itself. 

Any child should have reasoned out the 
situation correctly. Not to do so denied a 
35 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

person a measure of mentality above that of 
an ape, but my minister thought long and 
seriously of the matter, looked wisely at the 
score, sighed and then shot out his ace of 
trumps. The dealer and I both followed with 
a small trump ; my partner now hurled the 
queen into the embraces of the king, who, in 
company with the best diamond, was awaiting 
her in the dealer's hand. We had lost the 
rubber. 

At this point I mentally congratulated Italy 
on being rid of such an adviser. 

I have seen hundreds of such idiotic plays 
as this, and perpetrated by men of more than 
ordinary mental gifts. It was said of Shelley 
that he could not do a sum in simple subtrac- 
tion, and of Steinitz, the chess marvel, that 
he could not memorize ten lines of poetry. 
How strange are the vagaries of genius — 
and of bridge players ! 

There is a wonderfully true saying that 
everybody thinks they can drive a horse and 
build a fire, but we may add to it another 
that is yet more wonderful and true: " Ev- 
erybody knows that they can play bridge." 

I have so often heard men say: " Yes, I 

36 



WILD PARTNERS 



like bridge as a pastime, but I should never 
dream of studying it. I don't approve of 
taking my pleasures too seriously." 

What utter nonsense this is. Should a 
man spend his holidays playing polo without 
knowing how to ride? Should a man play 
poker who pays no attention to what his fel- 
low players have drawn? There are rules 
in bridge, established customs, and recog- 
nized leads. Why won't men learn them? 
They are simple enough. Heaven knows, and 
yet we see men year after year stumbling 
along from one morass into another, opening 
every hand incorrectly, refusing to cover hon- 
ors, finessing wildly against their partner and 
committing every abomination known in 
bridge, simply because they are too lazy to 
pick up a book and spend an evening or two 
in learning the first principles of good play. 

If a man leads the two of hearts, in a no- 
trump hand, from a suit consisting of the ace, 
queen, 9, 8, 6, 3, 2, he will perhaps make as 
many tricks in that suit as if he had opened 
the 8, but his partner will put him down for 
a four-card suit and perhaps abandon the suit 
i-n favor of one that looks a little more prorn- 
37 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 



ising. This is only one of the hundred or 
so truths that a man might learn if he would 
condescend to spend an evening or two with a 
good book on bridge. 



38 



CHAPTER III 

A FEW CHEERING ANECDOTES 

My readers may forgive me for relating a 
few innocent anecdotes about the game which 
will serve to show what a strong hold it has 
taken on some of its devotees. 

The first has to do with a very broad- 
minded Episcopalian bishop who is an invet- 
erate bridger, and has even been accused, on 
occasions, of neglecting the spiritual needs of 
his flock in order that he might perfect him- 
self in the masterly play of no-trumpers and 
the scientific blending of his two hands. 

A Mrs. N., who was herself a great lover 
of the game, had gone down to the bishop's 
country-place to spend the week-end. The 
bishop had also Invited a married couple who 
were adept bridgers. 

On Sunday — at afternoon-tea time — the 
bishop having finished his evening service, the 
party were gathered around the open fire, 
39 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 



chatting cozily over the buttered muffins. 
Mrs. N., who was aching for a rubber and 
could no longer bear the idea of " the un- 
bridged chasm " before dinner, asked the 
bishop, pointblank, if he could not — just for 
once — overcome the clerical prejudice against 
Sunday bridge. The bishop was a widower, 
and his two children were busily engaged on 
the hearth-rug in reconstructing a most com- 
plicated jigsaw puzzle, while a French maid 
was deftly taking away the tea things. The 
bishop seemed much shocked by Mrs. N.'s 
horrifying suggestion. 

" My dear Mrs. N.," he said, " if I had to 
consider myself alone in a matter of this sort 
I should perhaps feel justified, merely in or- 
der to give yoii pleasure, in yielding to what I 
am well aware is an insidious and a growing 
evil, but you must remember that there are 
others whose moral welfare is perhaps at 
stake, and whose spiritual paths I have always, 
however imperfectly, endeavored to direct. 
The children are with us, and Felise, my par- 
lor-maid. What would they think of me? 
How. could I justify the imperiling of their 
moral strongholds ? " 

40 



CHEERING ANECDOTES 

In a few minutes, when the maid had van- 
ished with the tea-tray and when the children 
had been cordially embraced by their father 
and quite as cordially sent to bed, the worthy 
bishop went on with his ennobling train of 
thoughts. 

" Yes, Mrs. N., we must try, in crises of 
this nature, to think of others. However, 
as the children are beyond the power of dis- 
turbing us, and as Felise is doubtless in the 
dining-room setting the dinner-table, I will, 
if you will accept me as your partner, chal- 
lenge our friends . here to two rubbers. I 
must, however, urge you to lock this expe- 
rience in your breast, and I also beg of you not 
to find fault with me if I make it very light, 
and, above all, I Implore you to curb your 
wicked propensity to- revoke, particularly at 
points in the game where there can be no 
earthly advantage in it." 

The bishop then proceeded to shuffle the 
fifty-two allies of Satan and to riffle the cards 
for the cut. 

The other anecdote has to do with a Mr. 
R., one of the most expert players in Boston. 

A year or two ago he suddenly discovered 
41 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

that he had arrived at " a certain age," and 
deemed it time for him to marry, settle down 
and gather about him those creature com- 
forts with which Destiny had so shamefully 
neglected to supply him. The uncertainty of 
a spasmodic income, gathered at atrociously 
late hours, in the card-room of his club, by 
outplaying his fellow bridgers, had begun to 
wear on his nerves. 

Having once fairly embarked on his quest 
of a helpmate, it was quite natural that his 
searching gaze should rest with favor upon 
Miss Bond, a wealthy and highly cultivated 
maiden of, approximately, thirty-seven sum- 
mers. Her eye-glasses, her extreme intellec- 
tuality, and her cordial dislike of bridge were 
certainly points against her, but her control of 
a Nevada gold mine and her comfortable 
house on Commonwealth Avenue were little 
advantages on which his fevered fancy loved 
to linger. 

Finally, at a " Thursday evening" — a 
sometimes instructive, but never hilarious, 
form of Boston entertainment — he made 
bold to broach to her the delicate subject 
which was mildly obsessing him. 
42 



CHEERING ANECDOTES 

To his no small surprise and gratification, 
his advances were met with a considerable de- 
gree of toleration. " But," said the learned 
and cynical spinster, " I cannot conceive that 
you are serious in this. Why ! I am convinced 
that you do not love me with half the sincerity 
that you do your everlasting bridge at the 
Somerset Club ! " 

" Ah," quoted our hero, with a fine show 
of enthusiasm and erudition, " I could not 
love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honors 
more." 

This cheerful sally appealed so irresistibly 
to the cultured maiden's heart — or, should 
we say, " brain" ? — that an Intellectual 
entente cordiale was soon established which 
finally ripened, on both sides, into a platonic 
marriage. 

It gives me much pain to add that the poor 
lady has, since her marriage, lost every dollar 
of her fortune and that the poorer husband 
is now forced to support three people by his 
bridge instead of one. 

One of the oldest and at the same time one 
of the best anecdotes of bridge Is that which 
Mr. Charles Hawtrey told with telling effect 
43 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

in his little play, " The Man from Blank- 
ley's." As the story is not so well known on 
this side of the water as it is in England my 
generous readers may forgive me for repeat- 
ing it, although I am frank to admit that I 
only tell it, because of its maturity, with a 
blush of shame upon my cheeks. 

A family, having become bitten with the 
rage for bridge, played it in their home upon 
every conceivable occasion. The family rub- 
ber was made up of the father, mother, son, 
and daughter. During a particularly long 
session the father was seized with heart-fail- 
ure and died. 

The deceased had often expressed a hor- 
ror of being buried alive and had begged his 
family to cremate, rather than bury him, upon 
his demise. A discussion soon arose as to 
whether or not their beloved parent should 
be sent to the crematory. The daughter 
seemed anxious to carry out her father's 
wishes ; the son was strong for a burial in the 
family lot. 

No agreement having been reached, the 
daughter finally turned to her mother and 
said: "Well, I'll leave it to you, mother." 
44 



CHEERING ANECDOTES 

So firmly had her beloved game taken hold 
of the bereaved widow that she sobbingly re- 
plied: " You leave it to me, Muriel? Well 
— I'll make it a spade." 

A lady from Chicago told me the follow- 
ing shopping experience which, she main- 
tained, had actually befallen her. 

She went into a dry-goods shop and was 
vainly trying to secure the attention of two 
glorious beings in black princesse costumes, 
surmounted by gigantic and plentifully mar- 
celed pompadours. Their voices were as 
sharp as the proverbial tack. Their heads 
were as close together as their pompadours 
would permit and their conversation was evi- 
dently fervid and engrossing. 

After the lady had waited patiently for 
some minutes for the discussion between 
them to cease, so that she might modestly in- 
quire as to the price of Copenhagen blue ama- 
zon plumes, she was surprised to overhear the 
following pregnant remark : 

"No, dearie, positively you are wrong; 
from king, jack, lo, you always want to lead 
the jack." 

This dictum, although it surprised the lady 
45 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

greatly, gave her a cue which she was not slow 
to take up. 

" Excuse me," she said, " but I think you 
are wrong. If you will read Elwell's new 
book you will find that the lo is the correct 
lead from such a combination of honors, I 
am glad to see that you ladies like bridge; I 
am myself passionately fond of it. Oh! I 
wonder if you could show me, without at all 
troubling yourselves, that beautiful feather in 
the case beyond you." 

The blonde goddesses were at once propit- 
iated and an entente cordiale was soon estab- 
lished. 

Speaking of Mr. Elwell and his books re- 
minds me that I recently heard a rather amus- 
ing story at his expense. It seems that there 
is a lady who is, by many people, considered 
the best bridge player in Philadelphia, She 
has, indeed, an almost national reputation as 
a bridger, and Mr. Elwell had often heard 
her praises sung by many of his friends and 
pupils. The lady chanced to come to New 
York and enter a tournament that Mr. El- 
well was managing. Toward the end of the 
afternoon he came over and stood behind her 
46 



CHEERING ANECDOTES 

chair and watched her open a no-trump hand. 
She had a very peculiar hand and a difficult 
one to open. She held major tenaces in clubs 
and diamonds. In hearts she held the king, 
9, 7, 4, and in spades she held the king, 9, 7, 
5. She hesitated for a long time and finally 
opened the four of hearts. Mr. Elwell 
turned on his heel with a look of utter con- 
tempt on his face. When asked, after the 
tournament, what he thought of her play, he 
replied that she evidently had not the slight- 
est idea of the game, as she did not even know 
enough to open her strongest suit at no 
trumps. 

There Is a very rich man — Mr. M. we 
shall call him — who is known in Chicago as 
the meanest man in the world. Stories are 
forever being told of his meanness (where 
money is concerned) but I think that the fol- 
lowing truthful tale is, perhaps, the purest 
gem of the entire collection. 

He had been playing at a lady's house until 
about eleven o'clock, when his taxicab was an- 
nounced. At the table with him were three 
ladies. Mr. M. was keeping the score and 
had nearly finished a rubber. The distress- 
47 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

ing knowledge that his taxicab was there at 
the door, clicking away money, was almost 
more than he could bear. He hurried the 
ladies along and seemed in a terrible fret 
to get away. When the rubber was over, 
the hostess, who had been playing against 
him, suggested another rubber, but Mr. M. 
was already in the hall, bundling on his over- 
coat, and would not hear of anything of the 
kind. He must hurry home at once, he said. 
He showed the hostess the score, from which 
it appeared that he was the only winner, the 
ladies owing him two, twelve, and eight dol- 
lars respectively. 

When the ladies made the usual announce- 
ment that they had brought no money with 
them, his face fell, as though he was a little 
saddened thus to be robbed — even tempor- 
arily — of his rightful and lawful gains. He 
stuffed the scores into the hands of his hostess 
and leaped, with the agility of a wildcat, into 
his taxicab, which drove rapidly off through 
the rain in the direction of his house near the 
lake front. The two visiting ladies smiled, 
said good night to Mrs. B., their hostess, and 
took their departure. 

48 



CHEERING ANECDOTES 

At precisely a quarter to twelve, Mrs. B. 
jumped Into her bed and, before midnight 
had chimed from her hall clock, she was sleep- 
ing peacefully. In the middle of the night, 
as it seemed to her — in reality, at half-past 
twelve — she was rudely awakened by a 
knocking at her door. The author of the 
knocks was a maid, who informed her mis- 
tress that there was some one who wished to 
speak to her on the telephone, " very particu- 
lar." 

Mrs. B. dragged herself out of her Em- 
pire bed and, after slipping on a gossamer 
arrangement of gauze and diaphanous trans- 
lucency, trudged to the telephone in her bou- 
doir and took up the receiver in a mood that, 
we must admit, bordered on petulance. The 
" party " at the other end of the contraption 
was none other than Mr. M. — the meanest 
man in the world. 

"What is It you wish?" said Mrs. B., 
with a wretched simulation of good nature 
and interest. 

" Oh, Mrs. B., I'm so glad I connected 
with you, as I wanted to tell you something 
rather Important. I have just this moment 
49 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 



remembered that in the second hand of the 
last rubber I gave you four honors in hearts, 
or thirty-two. In reality, you only held sim- 
ple honors, or sixteen. As we were playing 
two and a half cent points it might easily make 
a difference in the money score and, as I 
chanced to have a telephone by my bed, I 
thought it only right to call you up and tell 
you about it" 

Mrs. B. hung up the receiver, boiling with 
suppressed indignation and wrath. She then 
called the maid to the door and instructed 
her to sit up until precisely three o'clock that 
night, ring up Mr. M., and inform him that 
Mrs. B. wished to say that the sixteen added 
points made no difference whatever in the 
money score. 

It was a mild revenge, to be sure, but she 
could think of nothing more cruel or inhu- 
man. 

There is one more story about Mr. M. — 
the meanest man in the world — that is quite 
short and that may amuse my readers, as it 
also concerns the game of bridge whist. 

Mr. M. is married. His wife is, in her 
own right, an extremely poor woman, as well 
50 



CHEERING ANECDOTES 

as an extremely poor bridge player. She 
adores playing for money, but her husband, 
with an eye to the probable expense of such 
wickedness on her part, has sternly forbidden 
her — notwithstanding his large fortune — to 
play for any financial stake whatsoever. 

Poor Mrs. M. one day found herself 
among some ladies who were playing for 
five-cent points. She longed to plunge in, 
but her wholesome fear of her husband at 
first restrained her. Finally, however, her 
poor weak moral nature crumbled into bits 
and she announced that she wanted to play 
for the table stakes of five cents. After this 
cold plunge she sat down at the table in deadly 
earnest and fairly wallowed in the conscious- 
ness of her moral enormity. At the end of 
the seance — which had lasted until past her 
dinner hour — she found herself twenty-four 
dollars " to the good." 

Snatching up her gains, she hurried to her 
house, where she found Mr. M. in a fine 
rage at having to wait fifteen minutes for his 
dinner. 

"Where have you been?" he shouted to 
her. 

51 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

" Why, my dear, I never saw you this way 
before. What can be the matter with you ? " 

"Where have you been? Answer me!" 

" I've been to Mrs. Duquesne's, playing 
bridge, my dear." 

"Oh! You have, have you? Well! 
Mrs. Duquesne plays for money, as I happen 
to know, and so do all her friends, don't 
they?" 

" They certainly do, my love." 

" And did you play for money, too? " 

" Yes, my dear; I must confess that I did." 

" What stakes ? Pennies ? " 

" Well, no ! To be perfectly truthful, 
Henry, I played for five-cent points." 

" You know that I have absolutely forbid- 
den it. This is a deucedly serious thing. 
How dared you disobey me? You must be 
mad! What possible justification have you 
got for doing it? Answer me! " 

" Well, Henry, dear, the only justification 
that I have is that I won twenty-four dollars." 

" You won how much? " 

" Twenty-four dollars." 

"Let me see it! " 

At this point Mrs. M. began to feel herself 
52 



CHEERING ANECDOTES 

mistress of the situation. She took the crisp 
bills out of her purse and showed them to her 
lord and master with a sense of mingled pride 
and shame. He snatched the money from 
her hands, stuffed it into his pocket, showed 
her to her chair in the dining room and said, 
as she sat ruefully down at the table : 

" Helen, you have hit upon the one and 
only possible justification for such shocking 
disobedience — so please be thundering care- 
ful never to advance any other." 



53 



CHAPTER IV 

THE MATTER OF GAINS — AND LOSSES 

A WORD or two about the question of luck 
and winnings at bridge. 

While it Is true that skill plays a more Im- 
portant part In bridge than in almost any- 
other card-game, it is also the case that luck 
will often run persistently against a first-class 
player. When the game was first introduced 
it was comparatively easy for a good player to 
make a " fair living " out of the game. Such 
a player could then declare no trumps on a 
weak hand; could take foolish chances In the 
play of a trump-hand; could deceive his op- 
ponents by false carding and fool them by 
tricky leads ; but, now that the game has 
reached a pretty fair degree of excellence, 
such acrobatic feats are far less likely to de- 
ceive our adversaries. Prince P., a Russian 
nobleman in London, and perhaps the best 
bridge-player that I have ever met, told me 
54 



GAINS AND LOSSES 



that for the past three years he had made but 
a trifling sum at the game. In one of these 
years he had lost nearly three hundred pounds. 

Mr. R.'s winnings are Interesting, He is 
much better than an average player and has 
kept his bridge accounts very accurately for 
five years. He has played, I suppose, a Httle 
over a dozen rubbers per week. During the 
past five years he has averaged a profit of 
about eight hundred dollars a year, playing at 
five-cent points. Some years he has gone as 
high as thirteen hundred and some as low as 
three hundred. I know a poor player who, 
last year, made eighteen hundred dollars at 
five-cent points. I also know an excellent 
player who lost two hundred in two weeks at 
the same stakes. In other words, there Is 
nothing sure about one's income from the 
game, but It may be said with truth that the 
good players nearly always find themselves 
considerably ahead at the end of a year. 

The biggest loss that I have ever heard of 
at bridge was in a celebrated card-club in 
London, known, humorously, as " The Booz- 
ers' Rest." The son of a South African mil- 
lionaire went, on a Friday, into this club to 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

buy a cigar. He had purchased a ticket for 
the Covent Garden ball, and his cab was wait- 
ing for him at the door of the club. Some 
friends urged him to play the usual " just one 
rubber," and he weak-mindedly assented. 
He played another and another. He dis- 
missed his cab, tore up his ticket to the ball, 
and played until six o'clock in the morning, 
doubling and redoubling his stakes until 
he was finally playing for enormous points. 

During the course of this seance a very 
amusing accident befell which I have never 
chanced to hear of before. The African, af- 
ter losing a rubber, would tear up the cards 
or throw them indiscriminately on the floor 
and call for fresh packs. Toward morning 
he was surrounded by a perfect sea of cards. 

During one rubber — about dawn — he 
dropped one of his cards after the deal, and 
asked if he might pick It up from the mass 
beneath him as he was too tired to deal all 
over again. He explained that he was nearly 
dead for want of sleep. There was some dis- 
cussion about this point as he was not certain 
as to the exact card he had dropped. It was 
finally agreed that he might pick up the card 

56 



GAINS AND LOSSES 



he thought was his and call It. If none of 
the other three held that card, he might keep 
it. He picked up a card and called the queen 
of spades. As the others did not hold the 
queen of spades the African put it in his hand. 
He glanced at his cards and saw that his luck 
had turned at last. As he held an enormous 
hand he promptly declared no trumps. 

He soon secured the lead and led out the 
ace, king, and queen of spades, to which every- 
body followed. He then led the thirteenth 
spade — a nine — on which everybody dis- 
carded. Greatly pleased with his- change of 
luck, he started to play his queen of clubs up 
to the ace of clubs In the dummy. In a 
triumphant way he played the card — only to 
find that It was not the queen of clubs but the 
queen of spades. 

His adversaries at this point both exclaimed 
that there was something " demned odd " 
about the queen in question. It appears that 
he had himself held the queen of spades all 
the time and that the queen he had rescued 
from the floor was a duplicate from a rejected 
pack. A new deal was thereupon called for 
by the adversaries, and the unfortunate chap, 
57 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 



from that time on, lost continuously and did 
not hold another good hand. 

When the session had finally adjourned 
and the poor fellow had at last stopped play- 
ing, he owed the three gentlemen eight thou- 
sand pounds between them. 

Within a day or two he sailed for Africa, 
without settling his debt and each of the 
three men, without further delay, began 
branding him about London as a " welsher." 
Some two or three months afterward they 
were all surprised and elated to receive their 
individual checks from this gentleman and, 
I must say in their favor, that they lost no 
time in telling everybody of the African's 
square dealing and good faith. 

Such losses as these are, however, rarely 
heard of in this country, although Mr. Gates 
and some of his associates at Saratoga were 
known to play, on some occasions, as high as 
five-dollar points. There was one memorable 
session at these stakes that is said to have 
lasted for twenty-four consecutive hours, and 
the amounts won and lost at it must have been 
very considerable. These table stakes at Sar- 

58 



GAINS AND LOSSES 



atoga were the highest that I have ever heard 
of in America. 

Although we have been called a nation of 
gamblers, it might truthfully be said that all 
our really heavy gambling is confined to Wall 
Street. I have known men who think nothing 
of carrying twenty or thirty thousand shares 
of stock on margin who feel very much de- 
pressed and annoyed if they lose forty or fifty 
dollars at bridge. A conspicuous example of 
this is Mr. Chicane, the president of one of 
our most important railroads in the East, who 
is a brilliant bridge-player. He is a man of 
vast wealth but he simply cannot bear to be 
defeated at the bridge table and has on oc- 
casions been known to break up a fixed rubber 
as soon as he saw that his luck was running 
dead against him. 

This Mr. Chicane spent a part of last sum- 
mer at Newport and it was there that I wit- 
nessed a wonderful run of bad luck against 
him at bridge. 

Mr. C. and Baron A., an Italian — and 
one of the finest players It has ever been my 
good fortune to meet — were being worsted 
59 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 



in a set rubber by two second-class play- 
ers. The baron and Mr. C. had been chal- 
lenged by Mr. W. and Mr. F. The latter 
pair, in less than five hours' play, won eleven 
consecutive rubbers. They cut the deal and 
the seats every time. Their rubbers were, all 
but one of them, fairly large ones and they 
each pocketed one hundred and eighteen dol- 
lars at five-cent points, or a little over ten 
dollars for every rubber played. Some of the 
rubbers must have taken less than fifteen min- 
utes to play. I was at a near-by table and, 
occasionally, while I was dummy, went over 
and watched the progress of the match. The 
Baron and Mr. C. played faultlessly, while I 
should say that W. and F. " chucked " ten 
tricks in every rubber, but their cards were 
crowding in upon them and they could not 
lose. 

It would be interesting to get exact figures 
about runs of luck at bridge. Some years 
ago I won thirteen consecutive rubbers, but 
I doubt if I ever won more than eight at one 
sitting. I have often heard that, a few 
years ago, Mr. P. at the Racquet Club in 
New York won twenty-nine consecutive rub- 
60 



GAINS AND LOSSES 



bers, but I am not prepared to say that these 
figures are correct. 

Such a run of luck as this would be Httle 
short of marvelous. Let us, for instance, sup- 
pose that the three hundred million people 
who inhabit Europe were to enter a bridge 
tournament in which every couple was to play 
a rubber and drop out as soon as they were 
defeated — the winners keeping on. After 
twenty-nine rounds of such a tournament there 
would be only one surviving player. In other 
words it is, In betting parlance, three hundred 
million to one against a man's winning twenty- 
nine consecutive rubbers. 

But after all, such a run of luck as this Is, 
humanly, speaking, possible ! The red re- 
cently came up at a Monte Carlo roulette- 
wheel thirty-two times In succession. Why 
should not the cards behave as strangely as 
the. marble? 

While I am on this question, I feel that I 
must Instance the worst long run of bad luck 
which I have ever known. 

Seven years ago Mr. L. used to play regu- 
larly at the Union Club In New York. He 
played every week-day afternoon and must 
6i 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

have averaged about three hours' play. He 
never played for more or less than ten-cent 
points, the club stakes at the Union. 

Between the first of September and the fifth 
of April — seven months — he lost a little 
over eight thousand dollars. At the time, it 
Is true, he was not a first-class player, but, for 
that matter, few of his adversaries were, 
either. He has since improved his game and 
is to-day, I think, a fairly consistent player. 
His average loss was about forty dollars a 
day, or four hundred points, or two rubbers 
of two hundred points each. He figured 
that he played about six rubbers a day, 
of which he lost four. He assures me that 
he kept his bridge accounts very accurately 
and that he could not be wrong about his 
figures. 

To show how much money skill will save a 
man at bridge, I have only to point out that, 
had Mr. L. played well enough to win, every 
day, one of his four losing rubbers, he would 
have come out even on his bridge, instead of 
losing eight thousand dollars in a httle over 
seven months. Had he been able to do this 
62 



GAINS AND LOSSES 



he would have won and lost three rubbers a 
day. 

Some good players are, curiously enough, 
consistent losers. It seems as though des- 
tiny had decided to work perpetually against 
them. They play hand after hand per- 
fectly, make it correctly, and take advan- 
tage of every error on their adversaries' 
part ; but all to no avail — they seem bound 
to lose. 

I have in mind Mr. H., who Is certainly 
one of the best players in New York, and 
who Is, and has been for years, a steady loser 
at the game. Captain Lee-Barber, one of 
the most adroit and brilliant bridgers In Lon- 
don, and probably the best of the military 
players In England, told me that he had not 
won at the game for four years. Mr. Dal- 
ton, who writes about bridge so entertain- 
ingly In English magazines and who was, 
at one time, a very great winner at the game, 
has now come down to pennies, as he found 
his losses at sixpenny bridge mounted up to 
a very high figure. 

On this whole matter of gains and losses 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

at bridge there is, everywhere, the greatest 
apparent ignorance. This is particularly 
true among the literary ladies and gentlemen 
who are to-day using the game as a back- 
ground for their preposterous fiction. The 
London Graphic is one of the last to offend. 
In a leading serial in this popular paper there 
recently appeared a tragic account of a poor 
young gentleman and a poor young lady who 
attended a fashionable bridge-party. Being 
penniless, they were, of course, playing for 
money. (In fiction the characters, when- 
ever they are so poor that they cannot pay 
their honest losses, invariably " sit in " a 
game for high stakes and, of course, lose. 
The cruel hostess then demands payment, a 
scene ensues, the pulpit takes up the scandal 
and everybody agrees that bridge is a shock- 
ing and immoral game and that " this sort 
of thing " must stop. It never seems to oc- 
cur to the moralizing authors and preachers 
that the man or woman who plays cards for 
Xigh points, when unable to meet probable 
losses, is either a fool or a sharper, and that 
the cruel hostess who is asked to whistle for 
her winnings is, in reality, the unhappy char- 
64 



GAINS AND LOSSES 



acter in the drama and, as such, most enti- 
tled to our sympathy and tears.) 

Well, to go on with the Graphic story. 
The luck is about even. The excitement is, 
of course, " intense." The youth and the 
maiden are partners. The Greek chorus Is 
announcing the impending doom of the 
plighted lovers, when " she deals and makes 
It hearts; her partner doubles and they lose 
frightfully." The loss is, naturally, a " tre- 
mendous " one. Somebody really ought 
mercifully to inform these fiction writers that, 
In bridge, the doubling is not done by one's 
partner. This part of the merriment Is usu- 
ally left to the adversaries. 

Another tragic story was recently accepted 
by a prominent American magazine, the edi- 
tor of which was kind enough to let me read 
It In manuscript form. 

The poor but virtuous young wife of a 
very handsome but moral young man at- 
tends, without her husband's knowledge, a 
bridge-party. She plays a few rubbers and, 
on leaving. Is handed the paltry sum of five 
hundred dollars, the mere bagatelle which 
she has netted by her skill. (I may add that 
^5 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

the players are all simple, homely people and 
living in such a small way that the virtuous 
bride's winnings fairly took my breath 
away. ) 

The tragedy now bubbles forth In torrents. 
It seems that the wife was not aware that 
she was playing for money. It also seems 
that the husband has forbidden his wife to 
gamble at cards. The Incident naturally 
causes a breach between the husband and 
wife — I mean hook "naturally," not life 
" naturally " — a separation Is imminent, but 
she gives the money to his pet charity and 
peace is finally restored and all is merry as a 
funeral-bell. (I must add, in justice to the 
magazine, that the editor had decided, when 
I last saw him, to soften the absurdity and 
whittle down the amount of the winnings a 
little before printing the yarn.) 

I can only add that I have played bridge 
In so-called fashionable houses all over the 
world, and I have never heard of a lady win- 
ning or losing. In a sitting, anything like this 
sum at bridge, although It happens almost 
every Sunday — In the pulpits and Sunday 
supplements. 

66 



GAINS AND LOSSES 



I have often been asked about the case of 
the young man at Saratoga, and, as a very 
perplexing moral question is involved in it, I 
shall quote it and allow my readers to solve 
the ethical problem for themselves. 

It was during the August races. The 
youth was asked to make up a rubber with 
some very rich men who were known to be 
heavy plungers on the turf. He assented, 
but, before beginning, he asked them what 
the table-stakes were. 

" Well," said Mr. G., in whose room at 
the United States Hotel the game was being 
played, " we have been playing five, but we 
can raise or lower the stakes if you wish." 

Mr. F., the hero of the story, said that 
the points were perfectly satisfactory to him, 
and the game went on smoothly enough for 
four or five rubbers, when the session closed, 
and the three plungers plunged into a " low- 
neck " cab and drove off to the races. 

As they were leaving, Mr. G. thanked Mr. 
F. for making up the game and informed 
him that he would send him, on the follow- 
ing day, a check for what he, F., had won. 

The next afternoon F. was thunderstruck 

67 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

to receive G.'s check for three thousand two 
hundred dollars. He knew that, at five-cent 
points, he had won about thirty dollars. He 
accordingly wrote G. a polite little note say- 
ing that he fancied a mistake had been made, 
as he had only been playing five-cent points, 
and enclosing the check for correction. 

Mr. G. replied that the check was perfectly 
correct; the stakes, he explained, had been 
iive-dollar points and not five-cent points. 
He added that if F. had lost at the session, 
he, G., would have expected payment from 
him on a five-dollar basis and politely insisted 
upon F.'s keeping the check. 

Query : What was F. to do ? 

In England they have lately been waging 
a great discussion in print as to luck at bridge. 
An instance has been quoted of Mr. O. S. 
at the Turf Club in London who, for nine- 
teen nights, rose a winner of upward of 
twenty pounds per night. This is luck in- 
deed, but I have often thought that the vag- 
aries of luck were a little more mysterious 
and perplexing than we are wont to suppose. 
Most players think that luck depends solely 
on the cards which are held jointly by them 
68 



GAINS AND LOSSES 



and their partners, but, in reality, luck at 
bridge may bless and brighten one in a dozen 
ways not usually taken into account and, con- 
versely, it may torture and torment one in 
manners undreamt of and innumerable. 

Let us, for instance, consider a little the 
case of an imaginary Mr. A. : 

(i) He may walk into the smoke-laden 
card-room at his club and find himself a min- 
ute too late to cut into a particular rubber. 
As a result he will go to another table, where 
he will hold only the most atrocious cards, 
while, if he had cut In at the first table, he 
might have held enormous hands. 

(2) He may cut for a partner and get the 
worst player at the table. 

(3) He may cut for the deal and lose It, 
and the adversaries may score game on their 
first deal. 

(4) His partner may be a good player — 
as a general rule — but some devil will 
prompt him to play 111 while he is playing 
with A. 

(5) He may choose the wrong cards. 

(6) His adversaries may play stupidly 
and not In accordance with the rules, and yet 

69 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

that very stupidity will win them the game. 

(7) He may have two equal suits to open; 
if he opens his red suit he is lost ; if he opens 
his black, he is saved; and he will inevitably 
open the red. 

( 8 ) He may have nothing but winners in 
his hand and yet revoke inadvertently. 

(9) He may lose a big rubber and win 
three little ones, and yet be out on the day. 

(10) He may make it no trumps on three 
perfect suits and expect his dummy to supply 
his missing suit and the dummy is just as 
likely as not to give him no help in that suit 
at all. 

(11) He may win persistently at pennies 
and lose persistently at five cents — or ten. 

(12) He may have doubled no trumps 
with nine spades to the ace, king, jack, and 
lead his ace only to find that the queen is 
third in the dummy. 

(13) He may find all the adversaries' 
trumps bunched in one hand and none in the 
other. 

(14) He may expose an ace or a king 
while dealing to himself and be called upon 
to deal again only to give himself a worth- 

70 



GAINS AND LOSSES 



less hand, whereas his cards before had been 
enormous. 

( 15 ) His suit may be blocked with an ace 
single in dummy, or he may have a long suit 
cleared in dummy with no way of getting In 
to make it. 

(16) He may forget that a wretched little 
seven Is good and his loss of memory may 
cost him the game, while his adversaries may 
forget similar things (and even revoke) and 
still win a big rubber. Had he won that par- 
ticular trick with his seven the whole run of 
the cards might have changed for the rest of 
the day. 

(17) He may have a good hand and his 
partner may, at the same time, have nothing. 

(18) He may have enormous cards when 
it is the adversaries' turn to deal — and de- 
clare spades — while he will have wretched 
cards when It is his own turn to deal. 

(19) He may go to twenty-eight and stick 
there forever. 

(20) His hand may not fit his partner's; 
all the finesses may go wrong. There is a 
grand slam in sight if the king of clubs is on 
the right and the king of hearts on the left. 

71 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

Inevitably they will be arranged in the other 
order. 

(21) He may false card ten times and 
each time it will bring disaster, but the op- 
ponents may false card forever without any 
serious damage to them. 

(22) He may take extras in the room and 
lose on his extras more than he has won on 
his own rubbers. 

(23) He may cut a good partner, rubber 
after rubber; they may both play perfectly, 
and yet they may lose them all. 

(24) He may declare spades protectively 
and find a hundred aces in the dummy, 

(25) He may " carry" his partner (that 
is, assume his partner's financial interest in 
the game as well as his own) and lose, or be 
carried by his partner and win. 

Skill and luck may carry the day, but skill 
without luck Is far worse than luck without 
skill. Strangely enough, it is always the 
lucky player who is ready to swear that there 
is no such thing as luck. Such a player is 
sure to laugh good-naturedly at the idea of 
any one believing to the contrary. Men of 
this type may win twenty rubbers in succession 
72 



GAINS AND LOSSES 



and the chances of their winning twenty more 
are exactly as good as though they hadn't won 
any. The past in no way affects the future. 
In other words, their gains for six months 
have nothing to do with their probable gains 
or losses for the succeeding six. At the be- 
ginning of every rubber the chances are even, 
just as in tossing a coin the toss may have 
been tails for ten tosses and the chances for 
a head are no better than they were at the 
outset. 

As regards the matter of stakes, previously 
under review, we ought, in America — in our 
prosperous and surging times — to hang our 
heads in shame, when we read of the sums 
that were won in England in the highly col- 
ored days of old-fashioned whist. It is re- 
lated of Lord Granville — with whom Des- 
chappelles, the famous French whist prodigy, 
wanted to play partners, for any stake, 
against two archangels — that, at a single sit- 
ting, he lost ninety-five thousand dollars at 
Graham's Club. He afterward confessed 
that at one period of his life he was ahead at 
whist to the pretty tune of five hundred thou- 
sand dollars, but, shortly before his death, he 
73 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 



mournfully admitted that he would have 
made, on the whole, a better income as a 
journeyman glazier. Charles James Fox 
thought little of winning or losing a small for- 
tune in a night. Major Aubrey, at Gra- 
ham's, lost one hundred and fifty thousand 
dollars at a sitting. Beau Brummell is said 
to have won upward of one hundred thousand 
dollars in a night from one Drummond, " a 
mere banker." Lord Chesterfield lost a mil- 
lion dollars at Crockford's within a week's 
time. 

Such gains and losses as these are, of course, 
in our eyes, preposterous and reprehensible. 
" Cavendish " used to say that, " at whist a 
small stake is sometimes a mental catalysis," 
but I might add that a very heavy stake too 
often involves a — shall we say? — moral ob- 
liquity. If we play according to our means 
(and I beseech my readers never to play for 
more than they are comfortably prepared to 
lose), we shall come to no great harm at 
bridge. We may regret to see Mr. X. lose 
more than he can afford, but our regrets are 
tempered by the conviction that he is a fool. 
We usually think that a man who has lost 
74 



GAINS AND LOSSES 



more than he can pay is either a simpleton or a 
rogue. No man should gamble who is not 
prepared to pay up, instanter. In short, the 
game of bridge should always be played for 
ready money. Credit is a bad thing at cards. 

I once made some such remarks as these to 
an Englishman, a proverbial gambler and 
" waster." His reply was as enlightening as 
it was naive. 

" My dear fellow," he said, " there's no 
earthly fun in bridge unless you are playing 
for more than you can afford. If you know 
that you can pay up at the end, like a bloom- 
ing banker, there's no sting in the game at all. 
It's only when you haven't the ' ready ' that 
a rubber isn't an awful bore." 



75 



CHAPTER '\^ 

IN GAY PAREE 

In Paris the rage of bridge is just now at 
its highest point. One hears of nothing but 
bridge, in the papers, at dinner parties, in ho- 
tels, clubs and even in the cafes. Here is a 
very curious experience which there befell a 
friend of mine — Count P. He had met, at 
the Railroad Club in Paris, a very likable and 
talented young Armenian with whom he struck 
up quite a friendship, and who, it developed, 
was a very fair bridge-player. After playing 
with him on one or two occasions and finding 
him a most agreeable partner, he was delight- 
ed to receive an invitation from him to 
dine at his house on the Avenue Kleber. The 
Armenian explained that his father was in 
Smyrna, but that his sister and mother were 
devoted to bridge and that the dinner would 
be an informal affair and merely a pretext for 
a few friendly rubbers. 

76 



IN GAY PAREE 



Count P. accepted with alacrity and pre- 
sented himself, at a little after eight, at their 
"hotel" — (in Paris any large house is 
called a "hotel"). The ladies were excel- 
lent linguists and altogether charming dinner 
companions. After a rather fanciful dinner, 
which consisted largely of pilaff and matzoon, 
and while smoking Turkish cigarettes — the 
ladies were accomplished smokers — and 
drinking Turkish coffee, the young man ex- 
plained that the ladies did not play for very 
high points, as it was against their principles. 
They seemed of the highest order of culture 
and refinement, and my friend was, of course, 
ready to fall in with their views regarding 
the matter of stakes. 

The mother finally suggested that twenty- 
cent points — one franc — was a very good 
figure to fix upon. The Frenchman, who 
never liked to play over ten-cent points, pro- 
tested as politely as he could, saying that he 
could not increase his points, and suggested 
ten cents as the basis of play, to which every- 
body finally agreed. 

The game went on smoothly enough for a 
few hands. During the play of a difficult 
77 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

hand, however, the count was horrified to 
catch his partner, the young lady of the house, 
deliberately peeking at the dealer's hand. 
Shortly after this she claimed an extra trick, 
after the cards had been gathered. There 
was some slight discussion about the matter 
and the claim was finally disallowed. 

A little later, it being his partner's deal, he 
distinctly saw her change the cut. Gradually 
it began to dawn upon him that the polished 
and cultivated young lady was nothing but an 
ordinary cheat. 

What was he to do ? He was winning ; his 
gains were come by dishonestly, and yet, as a 
guest in the house he could not very well com- 
plain or make a scene In the bosom of the fam- 
ily. He was under their rooftree, and had 
just partaken generously of their pilaff and 
matzoon. 

His next shock came when it was his turn 
to deal. The mother arose, while he was 
picking up his hand, and, lighting a fresh cig- 
arette, deliberately stood behind him and 
looked at his cards. Another favorite trick 
of hers was to moan audibly when a suit was 
led by her partner, which did not exactly coin- 

78 



IN GAY PAREE 



cide with her ideas of the hand. In this way 
she kept her partner tolerably well informed, 
throughout the evening, as to the cards which 
she held. 

The count began to feel very nervous and 
111 at ease. Finally he was greatly surprised 
to hear his partner accuse her mother of tap- 
ping on her brother's foot, evidently some pre- 
pared signal between them for a special lead 
— trumps, or clubs, or whatever the suit 
might be. The poor Frenchman was non- 
plused and thought of pleading a headache 
and throwing his cards upon the table in 
despair. The luck was suddenly running 
against him and the nervous strain, due to 
his distressing discoveries, was beginning to 
tell on him. He finished the rubber, how- 
ever, paid his inconsiderable losses and po- 
litely made his excuses to the ladies. As he 
was leaving the room the mother called out 
to him: " Count P., you must come again, 
and you must he prepared to play for a little 
higher stakes." 

In the ante-room, while putting on his coat, 
the Frenchman turned to the Armenian, and, 
in a burst of candor, said : 
79 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

" My dear fellow, you must forgive me if I 
speak to you with the utmost frankness. I 
can never play In this house again." 

" Oh," he answered, " I know what you 
mean ! They cheat ! Of course they do ; I 
meant to tell you, before we began, that we 
always cheat, when we play at home. We 
think that bridge without cheating is no sport 
at all. I must apologize, though, for the la- 
dies. They do it so clumsily! Why, any- 
body could detect them. They do It so badly 
that It Is really absurd — but you should see 
my father. He is too wonderful at It. No 
one could possibly detect him." 

" And you," said the Frenchman, aghast, 
" do you cheat, too? " 

" With my family, always, but at the club 
or In a friend's house , never — unless, of 
course, the cards are running very badly 
against mc." 

There Is another anecdote connected with 
French bridge, but this time the story abounds 
In fervored gallantry. The scene Is of course 
laid In Paris, the chosen home of all exotic 
lovemaklng and sweet-scented mendacity. 

The Duchess de L 1, at the time of our 

80 



IN GAY PAREE 



story, was a bridge-fiend. She was a wealthy 
widow, living on the Rue Carnot, in Paris. 
She is now the wife of Count Henri de 

P e and shares with him his beautiful 

chateau in a smiling valley beyond Limoges. 

Count P e's wooing of the duchess was a 

long and desperate one. He stormed and be- 
sieged the fortress valiantly and persistently, 
but the widow would not, for a long time, 
capitulate. One of the objections which she 
humorously mentioned as weighing against 
him in her heart was that he was so stupid 
and forgetful at the bridge table. 

" My poor friend," she playfully said to 
him on one occasion, " you cannot remember 
three cards out of thirteen. Your mind wan- 
ders like Eugene Sue's poor Jew. You are 
distrait. You are forgetful. Go home. 
Adieu." 

Now, while Henri de P e was an exe- 
crable bridge player he was as gallant a lover 
as ever drank tea and, far from being discour- 
aged, he saw in this playful little subterfuge 
of the fickle duchess, a glorious opportunity 
for his own sentimental advancement. 

Arriving at his club on the Place de la Con- 
8i 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

corde — the only club in Paris where one Is 
still forced to blot one's letters with sand and 
poke the quill into buckshot — he sat down 
at a writing table, ordered an absinthe frappe 
and wrote to the duchess a heart-breaking 
billet-doux. 

It must here be explained that, in common 
with all amorous Frenchmen, the count ad- 
dressed his ladylove by a multitude of pet 
names, most of them the names of domestic 
animals, familiar fruits, and truck vegeta- 
bles, but these loving personifications, while 
typically French, have little or nothing to do 
with bridge whist, so we must content our- 
selves by quoting only such portions of his 
burning missive as are germane to our sub- 
ject! 

Here follows the Frenchman's epistolary 
attack upon the widow's counterscarp and 
ramparts. 

You ask me, my litde {here the count added the 
name of a very popular green vegetable^ why I am 
forgetful and distrait when I play bridge with you. 
How, my — 'name of a common household pet — 
can you ask? Gazing at those lips and eyes of 
yours Is distracting enough, Heaven knows, but I 
82 



IN GAY PAREE 



have even more than that to contend with. Yes, 
my beloved — najne of a feminine barnyard fowl — 
it is impossible for me to think of the wretched 
game when I am at the little green table with you, 
because, when I count the cards, I always think 
there are only fifty-two weeks in the year in which 
to love you. When I see the suits, I think of the 
number of weeks in every long month until you 
shall return my love: the twelve picture cards, the 
wearisome months in every year that I must live 
without you, my — name of a costly product of the 
best market gardens — the tricks, the number of 
weeks in every quarter until we be made one. 
When I count the spots I find that there are twenty- 
nine dozen or as many spots as I have found ways 
of loving you. When I see a club it reminds me 
that this wretched place, where I now write, is the 
only home I have; when I see a heart — ah, my 
adorable little — na?ne of a humble beast of bur- 
den — • you can well guess what I think and feel 
then; a diamond, and I dream of that little hand 
and the ring that I long to buy for It ; a spade and 
I am forced to admit that that is the only created 
thing that can separate us. 

Each time I see a king, I think of what I should 
feel were you only to smile upon me; a queen, of 
your noble and adorable self ; a knave, of every man 
who dares so much as to look at you; a ten, of 
those white and pretty little fingers of yours; a 

.83 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

nine, of the lives, like a cat's, that I would gladly 
sacrifice for you; of the eight, of the day of my 
birth, since which time I have ardently desired 
nothing but you; of the seven, of the days, from 
one Sunday to another, that I shall always remain 
loyal to you; of the six, of the days in every week 
in which others do not worship, but in which I 
shall passionately worship you ; of the five, of all the 
five senses which ache within me when I am near 
you; of the four, of the four seasons of the year, 
in each of which seasons you are nearer the heart 
of loveliness than you were before; of the trey, 
of those three chaste kisses which are all that you 
have grudgingly permitted me to bestow upon you. 
When I see the deuce, our tragedy — the tragedy 
of two unhappy and separated lives — swims, like 
a fever, before me, and when I see the ace, I 
naturally and inevitably think oh, my — name of 
a wild fruit product — of you. 

Deign to permit me, madame, humbly to lay at 
your thrice happy feet, etc. 

I am glad to be able to add that this note 
scored a grand slam and a hundred aces with 
the widowed and fickle duchess and that It 
decided her to remain fickle and a widow and 
a duchess no longer. 

A curious point has arisen In France con- 

84 



IN GAY PAREE 



cernlng scoring at bridge. It seems that a 
well-known card club In Paris is trying to 
change the value of a trick in no trumps. As 
originally played in the East, a trick in a no 
trumper counted ten points, and four aces in 
one hand counted eighty. This is as it should 
be, each count ascending two points at a time, 
but somebody who had learned the game, and 
learned it Imperfectly, taught it to a class of 
players who did not stop to think about the 
matter very seriously, and the mistake has 
spread all over the world. I doubt very 
much, however, if the distinguished French- 
men who compose the committee of the club 
in question will succeed in changing the rules, 
so as to count ten points for every trick in no 
trumps, Instead of twelve. 

It was In Paris that I first had the pleasure 
of meeting Monsieur R., one of the best 
bridge players at the Parisian Jockey Club. 
This particular Frenchman has the most ex- 
traordinary memory for cards that I have 
ever known. Once in playing a duplicate- 
bridge tournament in Paris he was barely 
beaten for the first prize by two English play- 
ers. The next evening, at his club, he and 

85 



THE ERIDGE-FIEND 

his partner were discussing the various hands 
and their play of them. He asked the waiter 
to fetch him a table and a pack of cards. He 
then proceeded to lay out, one after another, 
the twenty-four combined hands which he 
had played in the tournament. His partner 
told me that R. remembered them without 
any effort and that, as far as he could recall 
them, there was not a single error in the nine- 
ty-six individual hands. 

Mr. Elwell, in New York, has a card brain 
so perfect that he can carry hundreds of hands 
in his head and remember them at incredible 
distances of time. To the ordinary player, 
this seems like magic, but feats of memory 
such as these are, of course, cast into the shade 
by the performances of certain well-known 
chess-players. Pillsbury, for instance, one of 
the greatest prodigies of chess that we have 
ever produced in this country, frequently 
played sixteen simultaneous blindfolded 
games of chess. Mr. William D. Guthrie, 
the New York lawyer, can repeat, word for 
word, the whole of " Paradise Lost." Mac- 
caulay, on a wager, memorized the shopkeep- 
ers' signs on Piccadilly during a walk from 
86 



IN GAY PAREE 



Green Park to Piccadilly Circus and, having 
successfully repeated them, he astonished his 
friends by repeating them backward. 

I spoke recently to a feminine friend of 
mine about this extraordinary memory for 
cards that some people possessed, and I added 
that I could no more remember the bridge 
hands which I had played a week ago than I 
could fly. With a very provocative and 
charming smile, she rephed : 

" Well ! If I were In your place I certain- 
ly should not wish to remember them." 

But, to return to Paris, I want to quote 
what I consider the most extraordinary single 
exhibition of politeness which I have ever wit- 
nessed at the bridge-table. It was at the RItz 
Hotel in Paris, where I was playing with 
Prince de L., his wife, and Madame le T. 
This was my first bridge session In France 
and my knowledge of French, although fair, 
did not extend to the technical terms of 
bridge. In one of the very first hands that 
we played I remember making It a diamond, 
or, as I said In my feeble French, '^diamants." 
A little later I again declared " diamants." 
During the whole course of the evening my 
.87 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

hosts, when they made it a diamond, always 
declared '' diamants/' notwithstanding the 
fact that such a term is never used by the 
French in playing bridge. The correct 
expression is, of course, '' carreaiix " , but 
their innate sense of politeness prompted 
them to repeat, over and over again, the 
ridiculous blunder which I had so foolishly 
committed. 

They are telling, In Paris, a most extraor- 
dinary story of how Monsieur Z. made 2500 
francs at bridge. 

The tale is a little complicated, but I shall 
attempt to make it clear. Some weeks ago 
four Frenchmen were playing a rubber at high 
stakes — five franc points, in the Cercle de 
L'Union, a fashionable Parisian club. The 
score was about even, and they were begin- 
ning the rubber game. It was A's deal, and, 
as he was throwing around the cards, the third 
hand was called to the telephone. A lit- 
tle later he returned and said that he must go 
home at once on very important business. 
He also added that he would prefer to trans- 
fer his money interest in the rubber to some 
one else, if such a thing could be managed. 
88 



IN GAY PAREE 



He could not wait an instant, and, after apol- 
ogizing, hurriedly left the club. 

The three players then wandered around 
trying to get a man to take his place. In 
the far corner of the library they came upon 
M. Z., a very rosy gentleman who was sleep- 
ing audibly. He was, alas, decidedly " under 
the influence," (an extremely rare phenome- 
non in French clubs). They finally waked 
him up, however, and explained the matter to 
him. He said he would play, and he insisted 
on assuming his share of the money interest in 
the game. This arrangement they all agreed 
to, notwithstanding his condition, which ap- 
parently bordered on dissolution. 

No sooner had they all seated themselves 
than A picked up the cards, which he had 
dealt before his friend's departure, and de- 
clared no trumps, on the king, queen, and 
seven of hearts; the ace and king of dia- 
monds; two small clubs, and the ace, king, 
queen and three other little spades. At this 
point dummy jumped up and went to the 
cigar-counter for a cigarette. While he was 
purchasing this, Y., the leader, doubled, hold- 
ing seven clubs with the three top honors. 

89 



THE BRIDGE -FIEND 

B, the dummy, now returned from his hunt 
for a cigarette, and, hearing that the make 
had been doubled, redoubled it in turn. It 
seems that he had stupidly supposed Z the 
third hand, to be the doubler, and, seeing 
the ace of hearts and some little diamond 
strength in his hand, and knowing that A was 
not at all a rash maker, he had thought it 
wise to " lift the ante, just once." He looked 
at Z and, to his horror, beheld that he was 
fast asleep. He now realized his blunder, 
but said nothing. Here the leader, who was 
a pretty daring gambler, looked at his seven 
clubs and went back at his opponents with an- 
other double. 

The dealer, having sure control of all the 
suits, except the clubs, began to think a little I 
What had his partner — B, the dummy — 
redoubled on ? Dummy must have the clubs 
well stopped, he argued, or he would not have 
redoubled. If his partner had the clubs, then 
he, A, was certain to win two or three by 
cards. He accordingly doubled back. The 
leader took one last plunge and redoubled 
again. Dummy, who now fully realized that 
it was the leader who had doubled and not 
90 



IN GAY PAREE 



the snoring third hand, said: "Enough," 
and the leader played his ace of clubs. 

When Dummy's hand went down it con- 
tained three small clubs, to the ten. A united 
effort was now made to arouse Z from his 
deathlike slumber, but all to no avail. He 
was obviously hors-de-comhat. The leader 
was a little nervous but he finally showed his 
seven clubs and claimed the odd, as, with the 
three small clubs in the dummy, his clubs must 
all be good. 

The dealer admitted the soft impeachment 
and it was decided to allow the leader and his 
sleeping partner the odd trick. Z was now 
escorted to an easy chair and permitted to go 
on with his much-needed rest. The rubber 
was added up. The odd trick alone made a 
difference of 1920 francs: to which they 
added 500 francs for the rubber and 90 francs 
(which was the difference in favor of X and 
Z before the hands were picked up). The 
score totaled 2510 francs, checks for which 
amount were promptly and sorrowfully drawn 
by A and B. 

A now went over to the sofa, stuffed his 
check in Z's pocket, and begged the card- 
91 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 



room waiter to draw Mr. Z's attention to the 
check, as soon as he came out of his httle doze. 
As it was very late, the three men left the 
club, and the poor card-room waiter was al- 
lowed to " sit up with the body." 

In the course of an hour or two Mr. Z 
opened his eyes, in deep wonder. Where was 
he ? When the check was pointed out to him, 
he was slightly incredulous. 

" Some mistake," he said. " I never even 
picked up my cards — much less played 
them." 

" I can't say as to that, sir," said the boy, 
" but the gentlemen assured me that you had 
won the money, sir." 

This is the only case I know of where a 
man has played a whole game of bridge, won 
over five hundred dollars, and never looked 
at one of his cards. 

Before leaving the subject of Parisian 
bridge I must say that the " cunning " game, 
which is unfortunately beginning to prevail 
there, is, in my opinion, a delusion and a 
snare. The standard of play used to be high 
there, but the French have gone very far 
wrong, it seems to me, in deviating from a 
92 



IN GAY PAREE 



sensible adherence to established conventions 
and indulging in a fantastic and altogether ir- 
regular method of play. 

For instance, in Paris to-day, the best play- 
ers do not open the fourth best card of their 
long suit. They claim that it gives too much 
valuable information to their adversaries. 
Again they will lead the lowest of touching 
honors, Instead of the highest; they open short 
suits; they false card, over finesse, declare 
gamblers' makes and switch suits In a no- 
trump declaration with a rapidity which Is not 
only terrifying but costly. 

Altogether, Parisian bridge has developed 
into a barbarous game, at best. 



93 



CHAPTER VI 

CLEVER CHEATS AND CHEATING 

I SHALL begin this chapter by quoting what 
I think the most extraordinary bit of impu- 
dence and rascality which it has ever been my 
fortune to hear of at the bridge-table. This 
occurred a few years ago at a pigeon club in 
Monte Carlo. 

Four gentlemen, all well known along the 
Riviera, were playing bridge for fairly large 
stakes. The game was composed of Lord E., 
an Englishman, Prince G., a Greek, and two 
Frenchmen. Lord E. owed the table — from 
previous rubbers — about five hundred francs. 

The prince dealt and declared " no 
trumps." The score was one game all and 
love all on the third game. The Greek's 
hand consisted of: The queen and jack of 
hearts; eight clubs to the ace, king, queen; 
the lone ace of diamonds; and the ace and a 
small spade. 

94 



CHEATS AND CHEATING 

Lord E. — being the leader and holding 
ten hearts to the ace, king — doubled. The 
dealer declared himself satisfied and E. led 
his ace of hearts. Dummy had no hearts. 
E.'s partner played a low heart and G., the 
dealer, followed with the jack. 

E., seeing that the queen must fall on the 
next round, exultantly played his king. When 
It got to be the prince's turn to follow, he hesi- 
tated for some time and finally played a small 
spade. As nobody had followed suit and as 
somebody must have the queen of hearts, E. 
looked at his partner and asked him if he had 
no hearts, to which he replied : " No hearts." 
The leader looked at the prince and then at 
his partner and said: "Partner, please ex- 
amine, carefully, every card in your hand and 
tell me if you have a heart." His partner 
then repeated that he was void of hearts. 

Lord E. turned to the prince and said: 
" I must ask you to follow suit on this trick. 
I insist on your playing the queen of hearts." 

The Greek nonchalantly replied, in French : 

" I think I know the rules of this game as 

well as you do. If I revoke I am certainly 

bound to pay the penalty. As a matter of 

95 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

fact, you have no business to Interest yourself 
with my play, other than to demand from me 
the usual penalties in case I infract any of the 
rules." 

Lord E. still insisted that the prince must 
play his queen of hearts. The prince re- 
marked that Lord E. owed the table five hun- 
dred francs from previous rubbers and that 
if he was dissatisfied with the game he could 
pay his indebtedness and stop playing. E. 
thereupon promptly pulled out some notes, 
paid his debt and rose to leave the table. 

A tremendous discussion then took place. 
In this dispute, dummy, of course, was not 
supposed to take any part, but, being a gen- 
tleman of honor, and learning that Prince G. 
had actually held the queen of hearts, he told 
him that he feared he would thereafter have 
to forego the pleasure of playing with him 
and pointedly left the room, together with 
Lord E. and the Frenchman who had been 
playing third hand. 

Prince G. was, from that time on, pointed 
out as a suspiciously slippery card player all 
along the Riviera. 

Here was a case where it was perfectly evi- 

96 



CHEATS AND CHEATING 

dent that a man could save a considerable sum 
of money — roughly, thirty dollars, at ten- 
cent points — by revoking once in the heart 
suit. By resorting to this ruse, he was sure 
of one trick in hearts, eight in clubs, the ace 
of spades, and the ace of diamonds — or 
five by cards. Three of these tricks he would 
have to lose as a penalty for his revoke; but, 
according to the rules, his side would go to 
28 — the revoking side can never go game — 
whereas, by following to the second round of 
hearts, he was certain to lose four by cards, 
the game, and the rubber. 

Strange as it may seem, I have often heard 
Prince G.'s conduct condoned by men of un- 
questionably good character. 

" Why is this," they have argued, " any 
worse than hiding an unintentional revoke and 
trying to deceive the adversaries by throwing 
down the guilty card at the end of the hand in 
an idle and careless way and hurriedly quit- 
ting the trick? " 

Here is a famous anecdote of Lord de Ros 

who, some years ago, in the days of straight 

whist, was a redoubtable player in England. 

Notwithstanding his skill, he simply could 

97 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

not play fair and had a distressing habit of 
slipping an ace on the bottom of the pack — 
after the cut. In this way he was always sure 
of the ace of trumps when it was his turn to 
deal. He was finally detected in the fraud 
and left London precipitatedly for the Con- 
tinent, where, after a few years, he died. A 
well-known wag in London suggested, as a 
suitable epitaph for the unfortunate noble- 
man, the following lines : 

Here lies Lord de Ros 

In confident expectation 
Of the last trump. 

A growing body of converts to the game of 
bridge are the professional gamblers. Time 
was when a roving, talented and sociable pair 
of gamblers needed only a marked pack of 
cards and a knowledge of the mysteries of 
poker to make a handsome living on a trans- 
Atlantic liner or a Chicago "limited"; but 
we have changed all that, and no considerable 
or self-respecting gambler can now afford to 
be without a thorough mastery of the intrica- 
cies of bridge. 

A recent proof of this, which came under 
98 



CHEATS AND CHEATING 

my own observation, is wortH relating here, 
as the swindle was perpetrated with so much 
daring and ease that it deceived one of the 
cleverest and astutest Americans of our day, 

A year ago last June Mr. Charles M. 
Schwab sailed for Europe on the Kronprin- 
zessin Cecilie. On the second day out a cer- 
tain Mr. A., a dapper, suave and plausible 
young man, introduced himself as the son of 
a very old — and deceased — friend of Mr. 
Schwab's. Mr. Schwab, who is a pattern of 
good nature, was, of course, delighted to 
make his acquaintance and was also exceed- 
ingly polite to Mr. B., the traveling compan- 
ion of his new-found friend. B. — how sin- 
gular is the net of Destiny ! — turned out to 
be related to another of Mr. Schwab's friends. 

Mr. A. yawned and deplored the fact that 
there was, apparently, no bridge on board 
and mildly suggested a quiet little game of 
double dummy before luncheon — an invita- 
tion which Mr. Schwab smilingly accepted. 
The points were to be fifty cents, a trifling 
sum for so rich a man as Mr. A. pretended 
to be. 

Now, the best part of this narrative Is that 
99 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

it is actually true. Mr. Schwab is said to be 
the best double-dummy player in America — 
with the possible exception of Mr. Elwell. 
He has played the game a great deal and is 
letter perfect, not only in the chances of mak- 
ing or leaving, but also in the art of combin- 
ing his two hands. 

I watched the game, from the " sidelines," 
for three successive mornings, and I should 
say that Mr. Schwab was a ten-per-cent. bet- 
ter player than his suave opponent. Not to 
make this story too long, I shall simply state 
that Mr. Schwab lost nineteen straight rub- 
bers. How the marvel was accomplished it 
would be difficult to say, but I could not fail 
to notice that Mr. B. was usually close beside 
his friend. 

Occasionally, however, B. would leave the 
smoking-room, under some pretext or other, 
for a minute or two and return to his post 
beside Mr. A. with some hopeful little remark 
about the state of the weather, the proximity 
of a school of porpoises, or the likelihood 
of a good " run." 

Was B. in the possession of a few extra 
packs of cards? Did he arrange them deft- 

100 



CHEATS AND CHEATING 

ly for A.? Were the cards marked? Was 
A. a conjurer? These are questions which I 
am utterly unable to answer, but I believe that 
Mr. Schwab would have gone on with the 
game, in blind ignorance of the deception 
which was being played upon him, but for 
one preposterous error of judgment on the 
part of the son of his late lamented friend. 

Success had apparently gone to A.'s head 
like wine, and he was evidently convinced that 
he could perpetrate any outrage upon the 
good-natured steel king. Mr. Schwab had 
dealt and made it a heart, with the five top 
honors in hearts and the four top honors in 
diamonds and clubs, and no spades. A. had 
doubled and Mr. Schwab had naturally re- 
doubled. The farce went on until Mr. 
Schwab, in mild amazement, cried " enough." 

Naturally, as my readers have long ago 
guessed, Mr. A. held the eight low hearts and 
the five top spades, so that, by pounding away 
at his spades, he was bound to make two by 
cards. This was a little too much for even 
Mr. Schwab's good nature, and the game 
broke up in a strained and awkward silence. 

I was so curious to discover the methods 

lOI 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

of this sharper that I challenged him to two 
rubbers — at much lower points — and rather 
expected that he would let me win, as the 
stakes were hardly worth his while, but I 
never won a game in the two rubbers which I 
played with him, nor did, afterward, Mr. K. 
or Mr. N., two " added starters " in the race 
to get experience. A. actually won, in four 
mornings, twenty-seven straight rubbers and 
about two thousand three hundred dollars in 
cash. 

Some of the passengers — one of whom 
testified that these same gentlemen had crossed 
with him about a month before in the same 
easterly direction — urged Mr. Schwab not 
to pay A. a dollar until he had very carefully 
looked him up, but I believe that, after a little 
consideration of the matter, Mr. Schwab paid 
A. all that A. had stolen from him. 

I am, I must confess, grateful to A. for one 
thing. He taught me the best way of playing 
double dummy bridge that I have ever seen. 
The trouble with the game is the inconven- 
ience of changing seats, looking at your ad- 
versary's dummy, leading from two sides of 
the board, etc., etc. 

102 



CHEATS AND CHEATING 

A.'s solution of these difficulties was a very 
simple one. The player was always to lead 
and never the player's dummy. For instance : 
I am dealing and my opponent is on my 
left. I look at my hand and make it and 
my opponent leads, unless he wishes to 
double, from his own hand, and before look- 
ing at his dummy. After his lead we lay 
down our dummies and proceed with the 
game. 

If I can't make It in my own hand, I look 
at my dummy and make it according to rule 
— that is, three aces is a compulsory no- 
trumper, otherwise I make it my longest suit. 
In case two of dummy's suits are even, I make 
it the suit that totals the greatest number of 
pips. After I have made it, in dummy, my 
opponent leads. At the next hand my oppo- 
nent will make it In his own hand and I will 
lead, or his dummy will make It and I will still 
lead from my hand. 

In other words, the players always lead and 
never the dummies. The players alone can 
double and never the dummies. The players 
alone can deal and never the dummies. The 
players alone can declare no-trumps without 
103 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 



three aces. The leader must always lead 
before looking at his dummy. 

This makes the game a very simple, rapid, 
and amusing one. The only thing against 
this method of play is that the leader is often 
forced to lead at a disadvantage, but, after 
all, the rule is as fair for one player as for 
another, and this method of leading saves a 
lot of useless complications. 

Here is another very interesting example of 
the wiles of a professional gambler. The 
yarn is an even more picturesque one than 
that of which the unfortunate Mr. Schwab 
was the hero on the Cecilie. 

On this particular occasion the shorn lamb, 
who was not protected from the winds of 
misery, was Mr. H. D. Condie, the St. Louis 
merchant, who is a sound and careful player 
and who has played the game for eight years, 
both in this country and abroad. I shall tell 
the story as Mr. Condie narrated It to me. 

He was coming down from Mackinac to 
Chicago on the steamer Northland and was 
approached by a polite young man — they are 
usually young and always polite — who asked 
him if he would make up a four at bridge. 
104 



CHEATS AND CHEATING 

Mr. Condle, not being in the humor for it, 
declined. The next morning, after break- 
fast, he asked him again, and this time Mr. 
Condie accepted, agreeing, however, to play 
only two rubbers. 

They thereupon went to the state-room of 
the stranger's " fat and jolly " friend, where 
they found two men awaiting them. Five- 
cent points were agreed upon, and the first 
rubber went against Mr. Condle by a close 
margin. On the second rubber he was twen- 
ty-four to sixteen and one game in. 

It was Mr. Condie's deal, and he was sitting 
west. His opponent to the left touched his 
arm just as the cards were being cut, and 
drew his attention to a passing boat alongside 
of them. Without suspecting any fraud, he 
cut the pack which was presented to him, and 
dealt the cards. He was very soon staggered 
to see what a powerful hand he had dealt him- 
self. His cards were : The six highest dia- 
monds; the three highest clubs; the three 
highest spades and the lone king of hearts. 

He promptly declared a diamond and was, 
after a little hesitation, doubled by the leader, 
who, in turn, was promptly redoubled by Mr. 
105 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

Condle. At this point, third hand exposed 
the eight of diamonds and asked, in a whisper, 
if Mr. Condie knew that that suit, meaning 
diamonds, was trumps? 

The dealer scanned his hand and saw that 
he had the six high trumps, and figured that, 
as third hand had one trump, the leader could 
not have more than six. The dealer com- 
plained, however, of the exposure, and told 
third hand that he did not care to see his cards 
and presumed that the leader did not either. 

The leader, instead of going on with the 
doubling, offered to bet Mr. Condie fifty dol- 
lars even that he would beat him to the odd 
trick. The bet was accepted, and the leader 
led the ace of hearts, capturing the dealer's 
lone king. As it afterward turned out the 
leader's hand consisted of the six low dia- 
monds and seven hearts to the ace, queen, 
jack, ten; no spades, and no clubs. Dummy 
went down with six spades to the jack, ten; 
one low heart, and six low clubs. 

As a matter of course, the leader had only 

to go on leading his hearts in order to win the 

odd trick and the fifty dollars. I suppose 

that, as Mr. Condie's attention was called to 

io6 



CHEATS AND CHEATING 

the passing boat through the port-hole, a pre- 
pared pack had been deftly substituted. Im- 
agine the horror and chagrin in the camp of 
the enemy if Mr. Condie, being twenty-four 
and suspecting that all was not well in Den- 
mark, had declared spades and scored up a 
small slam, the game, and the rubber. One 
cannot help hoping to live until such a golden 
chance to confuse the wicked is offered one. 

As it was, Mr. Condie sadly paid his bet, 
and, with an increased respect for the wisdom 
of others proceeded on his weary way to his 
stateroom. 

There is a special ban and blight that rests 
upon a man who cheats at cards. It is the 
one unforgivable sin. A man may beat his 
wife or refuse to support his children but, if 
he peeks at bridge, he is lost to the end of 
eternity. In England a man may owe his 
tailor or his cheesemonger or his bootmaker, 
but he is everlastingly ostracized if he owes 
money at cards. 

Perhaps the most famous scandal connected 
with cheating at whist in all of English his- 
tory is the celebrated case of Lord de Ros 
which I have already mentioned. At the time 
107 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

of the furore, following the exposure, Lord 
Hertford was asked what he would do if he 
saw a man cheating at cards. 

" Bet on him, of course," was his lordship's 
reply. 

Lord de Ros' " system " was only available 
once in four deals — when he dealt ! At 
such a crisis he would palm an ace and slip 
it on the bottom of the pack. He somehow 
marked all the other aces with his finger- 
nails so that he could note, while dealing, to 
whom they fell. After the exposure of the 
fraud there was, at White's Club a vulgar 
" outsider " whom De Ros had snubbed on 
one or two occasions. He remarked to one 
of De Ros' friends, in a very insulting tone, 
that he felt rather sorry for poor old De Ros, 
and would certainly leave his card on him, 
but he was afraid that De Ros would mark it. 

" I think you can safely take the risk," said 
his lordship's friend. " I am certain that he 
would not think your card a high enough 
honor." 

This hon mot is, I think, usually attributed 
to Lord Alvanley. 

Another one, almost as good, is also apro- 
io8 



CHEATS AND CHEATING 

pos of poor De Ros. One evening he won 
enough from Lord G. at a single sitting of 
whist to build a small house in the country. 
Lord G, when the house was shown to him, 
was asked how he would like to live in it. 
" Not at all," was the reply. " I should not 
deem it safe. It is, after all, only a house of 
cards." 

There is. In a Chicago club, a very large 
game — usually fifty-cent stakes. At an 
afternoon session, Mr. T., who was playing 
third hand, took such a desperate, but success- 
ful finesse, that his fourth-hand adversary ut- 
tered a httle whistle of suspicion and surprise. 
T.'s partner offered to bet the whistling gen- 
tleman one hundred dollars that T. had a 
sound and suflicient reason for taking the 
finesse. The bet was taken, and Mr. T. was 
at once appealed to for his reasons. 

" Why," turning to fourth hand, " my dear 
man," he murmured, " I saw every card in 
your hand." 

There seems to be no end to the stories 
one hears of cheating at bridge. We used to 
believe that these tales were all malicious in- 
ventions, but, of late, the scandals have in- 
109 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

creased at such a rate that we are inclined 
to think that there must be a pinch of truth 
in them somewhere. 

For instance: In a well-known card club 
in New York there was, until quite recently, 
a gentleman who had a morbid love of cutting 
low for partners and for the first deal. This 
little passion of his cost him his position in 
New York society and, incidentally, his mem- 
bership in the aforementioned club. 

It fell out in this wise. He — Mr. X. we 
shall call him — found that by putting an ace 
on the top of a pack and covering it with four 
cards, the ace would become, very naturally, 
the fifth card from the top. By then riffling 
the pack on the table and choosing the fifth 
card in the spiral, or fan, he was certain to get 
an ace and, presumably, the deal. The fre- 
quency with which this polished gentleman 
cut the first deal finally became the matter of 
heated gossip and discussion in his club and, 
one winter's evening, it was proposed to watch 
him very carefully and take action against 
him if the suspicions of the gossips proved 
true. The three gentlemen composing the 
house committee asked Mr. X. to make up a 
no 



CHEATS AND CHEATING 

rubber at fairly high points. Three times, 
within the next hour or so, did Mr. X. reach 
over, after a completed rubber, and pick up a 
pack of cards, only to shuffle them, look, every 
now and again, at the bottom cards, cut them, 
place a few cards on top and otherwise ma- 
nipulate them, and, mirahile dictu, three times 
did he cut an ace or a deuce. Whtn the 
seance was over the three gentlemen retired 
to the hall and held a short consultation. All 
three of them were convinced that Mr. X. 
had prepared the packs before cutting, but 
none of them wanted the unpleasant honor of 
bringing charges against him. 

In the course of two or three days Mr. X, 
reappeared at his club and was handed the 
following sealed note by the doorman : 

The house committee has reason to believe 
that the governors of this club would accept 
your resignation if you were to hand it in 
before their next regular meeting. 

The next day his resignation was in the 
hands of the governors. Mr. X. has always 
been considered a good enough fellow, and 
his business reputation has been of the highest, 
but In such a trifling and petty thing as five- 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

cent bridge he simply could not run straight. 

Another scandal now going the rounds is 
that of Mr. and Mrs. T., the young married 
couple in Philadelphia who played such first 
rate bridge, who were so pleasant to play 
with, and who won such a very considerable 
amount of money at the game in the pohtest 
circles of Philadelphia society. That they 
have lately come such a fearful cropper is 
due to Mrs. A., a lady who teaches bridge in 
the Quaker City. 

It seems that the T.'s always insisted on 
playing together. Their reason for refusing 
to be pitted against each other at the bridge 
table was the reason given by so many mar- 
ried couples. As they both liked to play for 
money it was absurd for them to gamble 
against one another, as they had a common 
purse for their gains and losses at bridge, 
etc., etc. 

Now, before proceeding with this recital, 
I must pause to advise married couples always 
to play at different tables if it can be con- 
veniently arranged. I know that it seems ab- 
surd to suppose that ladies and gentlemen 

112 



CHEATS AND CHEATING 

might be suspected of having private signals 
at the card table, but it is just as well to give 
the gossips, malicious or otherwise, no ground 
for their suspicions. 

Mr. and Mrs. T., up to this year, had had 
a very lucky career at bridge and had become 
famous for their skill and daring at the game. 
When Mrs. A., a prominent bridge teacher 
in Philadelphia, heard on all sides that the 
T.s were the best players in the city, she be- 
came a little nettled as she was sure that she 
and another lady, a pupil of hers, could de- 
feat them at every point of the game. 

A match was accordingly arranged at the 
house of the young married couple. Mrs. A., 
who was comfortably ahead of the game as 
a result of her successful winter of teaching, 
suggested twenty-cent points and the match 
was soon under way at these stakes. After 
two or three rubbers It occurred to Mrs. A. 
that the T.s had mastered their game almost 
too perfectly. They seemed invariably to 
open the right suit ; they always left the make 
when dummy seemed to demand It; when- 
ever they doubled a make they Invariably 
113 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

floated gracefully on to victory. Mrs. A.'s 
eyes were beginning to open and her little 
store of cash to vanish. 

With the score eighteen all Mrs. T. dealt, 
hesitated for an instant only, and left the 
make to dummy, who declared hearts, with 
seven hearts and five honors. When the 
hand had been played out and when the 
dealer had scored up a small slam, Mrs. A. 
observed acidly to Mrs. T. : 

" How was it that, having six diamonds in 
your hand with the four top honors, you hap- 
pened to pass it to your husband? " 

" Oh," said Mrs. T. " I always somehow 
hate to make it a diamond." 

A little later, with the score love all, Mr. T. 
dealt himself three aces and a guarded king. 
Notwithstanding this compulsory no trumper 
he left it to his wife, who declared hearts, 
with seven hearts and four honors. This 
was a little too much for Mrs. A. She had 
not seen a trace of a signal between the T.s, 
but rage and suspicion had gotten the best of 
her. After the hand she rose majestically 
from the table and said that she must refuse 
to go on with the rubber. On being ques- 
114 



CHEATS AND CHEATING 

tioned as to her reason for this she simply ob- 
served: "I don't like your makes" and, 
with her partner, she calmly and sedately left 
the house after settling for every rubber but 
the last. 

That evening she confided the adventure to 
a feminine friend, under a strict promise of 
secrecy and the next morning it was all over 
Philadelphia. On the following evening it 
was discussed in all the clubs and suburbs, and 
finally reached a New York society journal, 
where it was printed with the usual circum- 
locution and vivid coloring peculiar to period- 
icals of this class. 

The next move was a suit brought by the 
T.s against Mrs. A. for defamation of char- 
acter, and a threatened countersuit against the 
T.s for obtaining money under false pretenses. 
A short while ago the whole pother was 
smoothed over by a written apology from 
Mrs. A., but the T.s now find it very difficult 
to scare up a rubber in Philadelphia. Indeed, 
the sympathy of most people is with Mrs. A. 
as, perhaps, it should be, in view of the two 
startling makes that were left to dummy by 
Mr. and Mrs, T. 

115 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

Of course if two perfect bridge players play 
much together, their game, to the onlookers, 
seems almost like necromancy. It is extraor- 
dinary what subtle mysteries their brains seem 
to divine. Of this there can be no question, 
but it takes a little more than skill to pick 
up a hand with six diamonds to four top 
honors and leave the make to dummy, who 
has, incredible as it may seem, seven hearts 
and five honors. Skill will do many won- 
derful things, but it won't see through the 
backs of average playing cards. 

Before leaving the matter of moral ob- 
liquity at bridge I should like to ask my read- 
ers to settle for me a little question of this 
kind. As everybody knows, it is a great ad- 
vantage to cut the first deal in a rubber and 
the lowest card cut will insure that particular 
cutter the deal. Now, it has been discovered, 
beyond the shadow of a doubt, that when a 
new pack of cards is riffled for the cut on a 
cloth bridge table, those cards in the fan, or 
spiral, the backs of which are most exposed to 
view, are, more often than not, the high cards, 
while those with the least part of their backs 
exposed are the low. This apparently incx- 
ii6 



_ CHEATS AND CHEATING 

plicable phenomenon is due, I am told, to the 
greater amount of paint on the high cards. 
Now, by choosing the least exposed cards in 
the fan we can often secure the deal, I have 
seen it work eight times out of ten and I 
dare say that seven out of ten would be a fair 
average for the success of the experiment. 
Query: Is it right for a player to select his 
card in this way? I know dozens of honest 
men who do it, regardless of whether the 
other players at the table know the trick or 
not. Is it ethical to practice this seemingly 
harmless little artifice? 



117 



CHAPTER VII 

MORE OR LESS SERIOUS AND HISTORICAL 

There Is, in all the realms of life and lit- 
erature, but one female whist player who is 
worthy of our utmost esteem and admiration. 
,It is hardly necessary for mc to add that this 
creature is a purely mythical character — the 
child of a great man's brain. I allude, of 
course, to Sarah Battle, that altogether de- 
lightful old lady to whom Charles Lamb has 
introduced us in his perennial " Essays of 
Elia." Will my readers forgive me if I 
bring her before them and reintroduce her to 
them ? She is so rare and resolute a character 
that I am certain that a second meeting with 
her will superinduce no " surfeit of Lamb." 

" A clear fire, a clean hearth, and the rigor of 
the game." This was the celebrated wish of old 
Sarah Battle • — now with God — who, next to her 
devotions, loved a good game of whist. She was 
none of your lukewarm gamesters, your half-and- 
ii8 



MORE OR LESS SERIOUS 

half players, who have no objection to make up a 
rubber; who affirm that they have no pleasure in 
winning; that they like to win one game and lose 
another; that they can while away an hour very 
agreeably at a card table, but are indifferent whether, 
they play or not; and will desire an adversary, 
who has slipped a wrong card, to take it up and 
play another. These insufferable triflers are the 
curse of a table. One of these flies will spoil a 
whole pot. Of such it may be said that they do 
not play at cards, but only play at playing at them. 

Sarah Battle was none of that breed. She de- 
tested them, as I do, from her heart and soul, and 
would not, save upon a striking emergency, will- 
ingly seat herself at the same table with them. 
She loved a thorough-paced partner, a determined 
enemy. She took, and gave, no concessions. She 
hated favors. She never made a revoke, nor ever 
passed it over in her adversary without exacting the 
utmost forfeiture. She fought a good fight; cut 
and thrust. No inducement could ever prevail 
upon her to play at any game where chance en- 
tered into the composition, for nothing. She sat 
bolt upright ; and neither showed you her cards, nor 
desired to see yours. 

I never in my life — and I knew Sarah Battle 
many of the best years of It — saw her take out her 
snuffbox when it was her turn to play; or snuff a 

119 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 



candle in the middle of a game; or ring for a serv- 
ant, till it was fairly over. She never introduced, 
or connived at, miscellaneous conversation during 
its process. As she emphatically observed, cards 
were cards; and if I ever saw unmingled distaste in 
her fine last-century countenance, it was at the airs 
of a young gentleman of a literary turn, who had 
been with difficulty persuaded to take a hand; and 
who, in his excess of candor, declared that he 
thought there was no harm in unbending the mind 
now and then, after serious studies, in recreations 
of that kind ! She could not bear to have her 
noble occupation, to which she wound up her facul- 
ties, considered in that light. It was her business, 
her duty, the thing that she came into the world to 
do — and she did it. 

I believe that, in the days of old-fashioned 
whist there was once a real woman who was 
supposed to be an ideal and satisfactory player 
and partner, but she played her whist nearly 
a hundred and twenty years ago — a period 
too remote for exact scrutiny or substantiation. 
I think that I have only to mention her name 
to cause a look of wonderment to spread upon 
the faces of my readers. I allude to Anna 
Laetltia Aikin, afterward Mrs. Barbauld. 
That she was a versatile, exact, and brilliant 

120 



MORE OR LESS SERIOUS 

exponent of whist, all the writers of that time 
are agreed. It seems difficult for us to be- 
lieve that the elegant and distinguished au- 
thoress of the helpful " Evenings at Home " 
and " Early Lessons for Children," could 
have been, at one and the same time, Mrs. 
Barbauld, the most moral of the preceptors 
of the young, and " Bob Short," the pseudon- 
ymous author of that famous little treatise on 
whist which was first published In 1792 and 
which ran through thirty fat editions in as 
many lean years. 

Let the ministers and Sunday supplements, 
who preach and print all this rubbish about 
the essential and innate immorality of bridge 
among women, please take notice that of Mrs. 
Barbauld, the first great feminine whist play- 
er, it was said by a polished writer of her 
time that " she engaged complacency and 
inspired esteem "; and that by another It was 
stated that " the simplicity of her life and 
manners and the purity of her soul are well 
represented in the works which have made 
her name a household word In England, and 
one to which the cause of education is per- 
petually indebted." 

121 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

Before we leave our historical researches 
I must add that among the brilliant lovers and 
defenders of the game in the olden days, there 
are three names that shine out with particular 
luminosity and splendor — Disraeli, Bulwer- 
Lytton, and Talleyrand. It was the latter 
who said, upon one occasion: "You don't 
know whist, young man? What a sad old 
age you are storing up for yourself." 

It is related of him that he was " a crafty 
and cunning player," a statement to which his 
whole career gives an unmistakable color of 
truth. Bulwer-Lytton was " exceedingly slow 
in his play, and, at times, seemed absent and 
unable to concentrate his thoughts on the mat- 
ter before him," but that he loved the game 
well, anybody who has read " My Novel " 
will be ready to testify. To us this book is 
one of the most beguiling novels in the world 
and the description in it of the whist scene 
and the players that composed it — the squire, 
the parson, the captain, and Mrs. Hazeldean 
— is an altogether delightful one. 

Disraeli's famous rubber in " The Infernal 
Marriage " is not half so entertaining a scene 

122 



MORE OR LESS SERIOUS 

as that In " My Novel," although we are told 
that his skill at the game was vastly greater 
than Lord Lytton's, and that he always stood 
ready, as was the dashing custom of the time, 
to play for a heavy stake and to " double It, 
after every rubber, until the most daring had 
been satisfied." 

While I am on the subject of old-fashioned 
whist I cannot forbear quoting what Is prob- 
ably the best known problem-hand In whist. 
It is comparatively simple, and Is usually 
known as the Duke of Cumberland's hand, as 
he Is said to have lost thirty thousand pounds 
on It. It Is particularly well known In Amer- 
ica, as Mr. ElwcU has used the hand on the 
outside cover of his first book, " Elwell on 
Bridge." 

The duke's hand was dealt In the follow- 
ing utterly improbable way: King, jack, 9, 
7 of hearts; ace, king, queen, jack of clubs; 
ace, king, queen of diamonds; ace, king of 
spades. Hearts are trumps. The duke's 
hand lay tO' the north, between the hands of 
West and East, the sharpers who were about 
to rook him. It was West's turn to lead. 
123 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

The puzzle is so to arrange the remaining 
thirty-nine cards that North's hand can never 
make a trick, struggle as he may. 

The solution of the problem is, of course, 
as follows : 

West, the leader, has the five lowest hearts 
and no spades. East, third hand, has the ace, 
queen, lo, 8 of hearts and nine spades. 
Dealer (South) has two spades and no hearts. 

Trick I. — West leads a heart. 

Trick 2. — East leads a spade and West 
trumps. 

Trick 3. — West leads a heart. 

Trick 4. — East leads a spade and West 
trumps. 

Trick 5. — West leads his last heart. 

Trick 6. — East leads his last heart, takes 
out North's only remaining trump, and then 
makes seven spades, or a total of thirteen 
tricks. 

The cover of Mr. Elwell's later book, " Ad- 
vanced Bridge," has also given rise to a good 
deal of speculation. People have so often 
suggested that it was some ingenious and far- 
fetched bridge-problem that I am glad to be 
able to state that it is only a pictorial illustra- 
124 



MORE OR LESS SERIOUS 

tion of Pope's well-known lines in "The 
Rape of the Lock." 

*' The knave of diamonds tries his wily arts. 
And wins, oh, shameful chance, the queen of 
hearts." 

While whist was known to Pope, it was a 
closed book to Shakespeare, although I find 
a Dassage in " Antony and Cleopatra," Act 
IV., Scene 12, which, in a punning way, men- 
tions the Elizabethan game of " triumph," or 
" trump," from which game whist was slowly 
developed and evolved. 

The lines I speak of are as follows : 

My good knave, Eros, now thy captain is 

Even such a body; here I am Antony: 

Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave. 

I made these wars for Egypt; and the queen 

Whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine; 

Which, whilst it was mine, had annexed unto't 

A million more, now lost, — she, Eros, has 

Packed cards with Cassar, and false played my glory 

Unto an enemy's triumph. 

My readers have all of them, I suppose, 
heard a great deal, in bridge, about the rule 
of eleven. I may be permitted to add a few 
125, 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

words about this uncanny and invaluable aid 
to bridge. 

The rule of eleven is simple enough in 
practice, but it only applies, of course, to leads 
of the fourth best card in a suit. 

Let us say that A. is the leader and that he 
invariably leads the fourth best card of his 
longest suit. Deduct the number, or pip, or 
value of the card led from eleven and the 
difference will be the number of cards in the 
remaining three hands that can take the car4 
led. For instance: A. leads a two; there 
must and can only be nine cards, outside of his 
own hand, that will take it, as two from eleven 
leaves nine. This rule is the only important, 
epoch-making discovery made in whist during 
the last hundred years. 

It is obvious, palpable, self-evident; and yet 
millions of people played whist for two hun- 
dred years and never discovered it. It was 
like Newton's apple. Everybody saw things 
falling about them, all over the world — ap- 
ples, stocks, stars, reputations and meteors — 
but nobody stopped long enough to reason 
about it. I know thousands of bridge players 
who use the eleven rule in nearly every hand 
126 



MORE OR LESS SERIOUS 

they play and yet I have only met half a dozen 
people in all my life who understood why the 
unanny thing should always work out cor- 
rectly. 

In reality, it is very simple — simpler than 
Newton's apple by far. If the fourth best 
card were always led, the lead of a jack would 
show that there was no card outside the lead- 
er's hand that could take It, because the only 
three higher cards are the ace, king and queen, 
and, as the jack Is the fourth best, it must 
be good against the board. Now, the jack 
Is the eleventh card and therefore the key to 
the riddle. If the ten were led — from 
fourth best — there could only be one better 
card out ; if the nine, two ; if the eight, three, 
and so on to the end. 

The rule was first discovered in the early 
eighties by Mr. R. F. Foster, at present a resi- 
dent of Brooklyn. It was years, however, 
before he could get anybody to make use of 
It. He was ridiculed and made fun of by 
most of his friends and pupils. Finally In 
eighteen hundred and eighty-nine he published 
the rule and from that time on its spread has 
been rapid. To-day, It is used all over the 
127 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

world by every bridge player of any preten- 
sions. It is of course a far greater help in 
bridge than in straight whist, as the exposed 
dummy gives everybody a better chance to ap- 
ply it in bridge than would be possible in 
straight whist. 

In the early eighties, the term " fourth 
best " was not in general use. People in those 
days used to lead the " penultimate " or the 
" antepenultimate." When Foster came to 
study these antepenultimate leads from suits 
of six cards, and penultimates from suits of 
five, he wrote out, opposite each hand — from 
which a high card would not be led — the 
high cards that were out against the leader. 
For Instance, a player would lead the penulti- 
mate from K, J, 9, 7, 2, and the high cards 
against him were the A, Q, 10, 8, all higher 
than his penultimate lead — the 7. When 
Foster got about a hundred of these com- 
binations written out, he could not help ob- 
serving that the number of cards out against 
the leader was always the same when the pen- 
ultimate was the same card. If a 7 was led, 
there were always four cards higher against 
128 



MORE OR LESS SERIOUS 

the leader. If an 8, always three; if a 6, al- 
ways five; and so on. 

The difference between the card led being 
always the difference between the spots on that 
card and eleven, the rule followed easily. 

The rule can, of course, be developed. For 
instance : If you lead third best, the card led 
must be deducted from twelve; second best, 
from thirteen; fifth best, from ten, etc., etc. 

I suppose that very few people have any 
conception of the Infinite number of possible 
bridge hands. I have often heard men say 
that they have seen every known combination 
of cards, but I am convinced that they would 
be appalled to know how many different com- 
binations of cards are actually possible. 

The following insignificant example Is 
Illuminative : There are no less than twenty- 
four ways In which the four aces may be 
placed at a bridge-table with reference to one 
another. This, of course. Is a- trifling matter, 
but let us now suppose that four people are 
playing bridge. Four hands are dealt, one 
each to North and South and East and West. 
After the hands have been played, what is the 
129 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

chance that those very hands will be dealt 
again in exactly the same way; that is to say, 
that North will hold the same hand he held 
before, as will also South and East and West? 

I have heard people guess that the odds 
would be a billion to one against such a fall 
of the cards, but never that it would be as high 
as a trillion to one, and yet a trillion to one 
is not a quadrillionth of the betting odds. 

This problem may be expressed, algebraic- 
ally, as follows: 

(1x2x3 ^tc. X 13)^ 



52 X 51 X 50 etc. X 14 

If we work out the above sum we shall 
find that the odds against the same four hands 
being dealt to the same four players are 
1,094,790,566,642,628,425,290,560,000 to 
one. 

Here is a number that is beyond the com- 
prehension of the average mind. Astrono- 
mers alone can grasp the full significance of 
it. To play all these hands would take an 
eternity. Let us suppose, for instance, that 
400,000,000 players, making up 100,000,000 
tables, were to play ten hours every day, and 
130 



MORE OR LESS SERIOUS 

ten hands every hour, it would take them over 
3,000,000,000,000 centuries to complete 
them, without taking Into account any but the 
first four figures of the result. 

To take a rather fanciful example, let us 
suppose that our 400,000,000 players were 
to drink, each of them, a pint of water every 
day, it would, at this rate, take them two 
hundred years to drink Lake Champlain dry, 
so that, before finishing our imaginary bridge 
tournament, Lake Champlain would have been 
emptied 1,500,000,000,000 times. 

In a similar way, it will be seen that the 
number of different 13-card hands may be 
expressed : 

52x51 X etc. X 40 



I X 2 X etc. X 13 

The result shows us that there are no 
fewer than 32,599,952,197 possible bridge 
hands. 

(Parenthetically I may add that the betting 
odds against holding four aces in one hand 
are 180 to i.) 

I have sometimes been asked why the pen- 
alty was ever changed for leading out of the 
131 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 



wrong hand. The penalty for this offense 
used to be calling a suit from the correct 
hand, and, indeed, in some parts of America, 
this penalty is still exacted. It was enforced 
at the Whist Club in New York until, one 
fine day, the following incident occurred 
which suggested that a change in the rule 
would be advisable. 

Dummy declared no trumps on the follow- 
ing hand: Ace, king, queen, jack, lo, 7, 3 
of spades; king, jack, 4 of clubs; king of dia- 
monds; jack, 10 of hearts; the score being 
26 to o, against him on the rubber game. 
The leader led the 7 of diamonds from ace, 
queen and five little ones, and the lone king 
in dummy held the trick. The dealer held 
six clubs to the ace, queen, 10, and one small 
spade. He saw at once that he was certain 
of winning a grand slam, but his excitement 
was so great that he led his single small spade 
from his own hand up to the seven high 
spades in dummy. Third hand noticed that 
the lead had come from the wrong hand and 
called a heart from dummy. With the aid 
of his partner, third hand cleaned up six heart 
tricks and then returned a diamond to the 
132 



MORE OR LESS SERIOUS 

leader, who, in turn, cleaned up six diamonds, 
a total of twelve tricks or a little slam, against 
a certain grand slam hand. This made a 
difference of 24 tricks at 12 points each and 
60 points in the honor column, for slams — a 
penalty of 344 points for a hurried but wholly 
unintentional lead from the wrong hand. It 
was this incident that led to a revision of the 
old penalty at the Whist Club. 

The other day some gentlemen at the 
" Whist " were comparing notes as to the 
largest rubber in their experience of bridge. 
One of them remarked that it was possible to 
score 2,316 points in one rubber, without a 
revoke or a double of any sort. This re- 
mark aroused the three of us to the point of 
incredulity. We began to study the matter 
and saw that the statement was absolutely 
correct and that such a rubber is — humanly 
speaking — possible. 

The marvel is accomplished in the follow- 
ing utterly improbable way. North deals 
and declares hearts with live honors in one 
hand and wins the trick. East deals and de- 
clares hearts, but North still holds five hon- 
ors In one hand. East wins the odd trick.. 
133 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

North then holds five honors in hearts and 
wins the odd trick. East deals and wins the 
odd trick at hearts, North still holding five 
honors. North deals with the usual five hon- 
ors and makes the trick. East declares 
hearts with no honors and North wins the 
trick. By this time North has scored 480 
points in honors and 24 below the line. East 
has scored only 24 below the line. North 
now deals and declares spades with five hon- 
ors in one hand, and makes the trick. East 
declares a defensive spade, and North holds 
five honors in one hand. East wins the trick. 
North again holds five honors in spades and 
wins the trick. East deals and declares 
spades. North as usual has his five honors, 
but loses the trick. The score is now 28 all 
below the line. At this point North declares 
no trumps, with 100 aces, and makes a grand 
slam, or a total for the first game of 784 
points, net. The same score is repeated on 
the third game, but, on the second. East be- 
gins dealing and the same hands occur again, 
except that, on the eleventh deal, East de- 
clares no trumps, without an ace, and makes 
the odd. North, in this hand, has a hundred 
134 



MORE OR LESS SERIOUS 

aces, and, although he loses the game, he has 
scored 648 net points on it, or a total for the 
three games of 2,216 points. To this must 
be added 100 points for the rubber, or a 
grand total of 2,316 points, the largest rubber 
possible, without a penalty or a double. 

The latest thing in bridge is a bridge cor- 
respondence school. This enterprising New 
York concern has prepared a course of six 
lessons which treat of such matters as cor- 
rect habits, the score, the makes, the leads, 
the discards and the laws. With each les- 
son is sent a series of questions which must 
be answered by the pupil. Some of the fin- 
ished papers, answers and communications 
must be highly diverting. If I may judge from 
the letters which are sent to me — as a re- 
sult of my modest writings on the noble game. 
The questions that people send me are, some 
of them. Incredibly weird and amusing, as, 
for example, the three that follow: 

" To decide a bet — is the large slam the biggest 
of all the slams ? " 

" You evidently think, from your writings, that 
you are a fine double-dummy player! Some people 
in this town think pretty well of one of our local 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

players. Now, Mr. Bruce, we are ready here to 
make up a purse of one hundred dollars to back him 
against you for five hours' play (duplicate double- 
dummy), at any time or any place, etc., etc." 

" Doctor Johnson once told Boswell that he was 
sorry he didn't play whist, as it helped ' to generate 
kindness.' Was the doctor in earnest or was he 
giving Boswell a * josh ' ? " 

Another bridge innovation is the announce- 
ment by a well-knovi^n magazine, devoted to 
women's interests, that they are ready to re- 
ply to inquiries concerning the etiquette of the 
game in their " department of behavior." 
An idle, trivial and rather slangy friend of 
mine was so delighted with this idea that he 
sat down and wrote, in different handwritings, 
the following queries to the etiquette editor: 

(i) Is it ever good form for a gentleman to 
change his suit at the bridge table — in the presence 
of ladies ? Estelle. 

(2) I write for advice. Have I been insulted? 
I called on my lady friend last night and she asked 
me to play bridge. I had never played before. 
Twice during the game she called me a dummy and 
once a cross rough. One hand she said she was 
afraid to play a heart because somebody held a 
136 



MORE OR LESS SERIOUS 

major tennis over her. What kind of an instru- 
ment or weapon is this? The last hand of the 
game I had the ace, king, queen, and jack of clubs. 
I led the jack and my partner — my lady friend's 
mother — trumped it. It was the first time 
around. After the hand my partner was hopping 
mad and whispered to her daughter, " How was I 
to know that he had a quart? " Now, as a matter 
of fact, I had only had a pint and that was at least 
an hour before calling. M. A. D." 

I need hardly say that these brilliant (?) 
sallies of wit have remained, to this day, un- 
noticed by the overworked and, presumably, 
indignant etiquette editor. 

There has lately been so much fevered and 
heated discussion about declaring a protective 
spade on one's own deal when one has no 
strength in any suit, that I am glad to be able 
to quote the first recorded hand in which this 
ruse was practiced in America. As there 
may be some little curiosity about it I shall 
quote the four hands of this particular deal in 
full. The hand was played at the Whist 
Club, in New York, In March, 1900. Mr. 
John Gleason, a remarkably fine bridge player, 
held Z.'s hand, and declared spades at the 
137 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

score of love all on the second game, he and 
his partner having won the first. The cards 
were dealt in the following order : 

Z (dealer). 8, 7, 4, of hearts; 6, 5, 3, of 
clubs; 5, 3, 2, of diamonds; jack, 10, 9., 4, of 
spades. 

A (leader). 9, 3, of hearts; queen, 9, 8, 2, 
of clubs; jack, 7, 6, 4, of diamonds; queen, 8, 

3, of spades. 

Y (dummy). Ace, 6, 5, of hearts; ace, 7, 

4, of clubs; king, 10, 9, 8, of diamonds; ace, 
7, 2, of spades. 

B (third hand). King, queen, jack, 10, 2, 
of hearts; king, jack, 10, of clubs; ace, queen, 
of diamonds; king, 6, 5, of spades. 

This original make of spades so frightened 
and mystified the gentleman who was playing 
third hand that he failed to double, although, 
with his cards, a double seems a fairly sure 
risk. He afterward explained that he 
thought Z. must have had a battalion of 
spades, or he would not have declared them 
with the score at love all. As the hand was 
actually played Y.-Z. lost three by cards, but 
scored four by honors. Had Mr. Gleason 
passed the make, the dummy would have been 

138 



MORE OR LESS SERIOUS 

obliged to declare no trumps and third hand 
would certainly have doubled so as to be sure 
of a heart lead. 

At no trumps, doubled, Y.-Z. would lose 
four by cards, or ninety-six points — although 
they would score thirty for aces — a net sav- 
ing of sixty-four points In favor of the spade 
declaration, not to mention the game and per- 
haps, a little later, the rubber. 

Since this declaration of Mr. Gleason's, 
way back in 1900, the "protective spade" 
has come more and more generally into use. 
Indeed, I think that two-thirds of the best 
bridge players now declare an original spade 
if they find, after dealing, that they have not 
a probable trick in their hand. 

These hands, without any high cards, are 
always known as " Yarboroughs." This Is 
the correct name for them wherever the Eng- 
lish tongue is spoken, and I deeply deplore 
the growing popularity of that hateful word 
" bust," the origin of which, I am afraid, 
must be credited to the West. 

On all sides I am beginning to hear that 
dreadful question, "Do you pass a bust?" 
instead of " Do you pass a Yarborough? " 
139 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

Say I Chicago I Are you guilty? Speak! 
Confess! Is the hideous crime upon your 
shoulders ? 

I have noted, of late, all over the country 
a steady growth of bridge playing, and, what 
is more, I think I detect a little less prejudice 
against it on all sides and a little more toler- 
ance in people's minds for all such persons as 
are a prey to its insidious delights. As far 
back as March 15th, 1907, I remember read- 
ing that, in Salt Lake City, Senator Williams 
had introduced a bill in the State Senate mak- 
ing the playing of bridge whist for money, 
or for a prize, a felony punishable by impris- 
onment from two to five years. After much 
discussion the bill was passed, but I doubt if it 
ever became law, as I have heard of no women 
of fashion being dragged from their splendid 
residences in a " black Maria " to the gates 
of the Utah donjon keeps. I am afraid that 
Senator Williams must be, like all Western 
senators, a relentless foe of anything that 
tends to dim the glory or check the sway of 
our great national game of poker. 

Should Governor Hughes read these few 
lines I trust that he will forbear attempting 
140 



MORE OR LESS SERIOUS 

to incarcerate all the ladies who have done 
so much to make bridge popular in Albany. 
Should he, however, pass such a law in the 
state of New York, I predict that our prisons 
will become the most delightful dwelling 
places in the State, and that over fifty per 
cent of their inmates will be lovely ladies of 
fashion, who cannot be kept from their rub- 
ber by any such ridiculous means as the enact- 
tion of laws, the thickest of prison walls, or 
the thundering fiats of their paternal gov- 
ernor. 



141 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE LADIES ANGELIC AND OTHERWISE 

Many stories are told, some of them 
doubtless apocryphal, of games of bridge 
played by ladies under peculiar circum- 
stances. 

In a private New York hospital there 
were, last summer, four ladies who loved the 
game devotedly. Unfortunately they were 
all so ill that they were not permitted to leave 
their beds. But bridge, like love, will find 
the way, and so these ladies every morning 
commanded their nurses to wheel their sev- 
eral beds from their sick rooms, out into the 
central hall, where the beds were arranged, 
two on one side of the hall and two on the 
other. Partners were chosen, and four packs 
of cards and four lap-boards were produced. 
A nurse dealt the cards, one to each player 
on her particular board. After the make the 
dummy was spread out in duplicate on each 
142 



THE LADIES 



board, and the ladies, as it was their turn to 
play, feebly called their cards. In this rather 
awkward way the mornings were made to pass 
very happily. 

In Scotland an English nobleman and his 
wife had a grouse moor. They had asked a 
large shooting party up from London. The 
shooting was usually about six miles from the 
house, and, every noon, four or five of the 
ladies would bundle themselves into a bus 
and drive to the coverts, in order to lunch 
with the sportsmen. A folding-table was 
carried along, as well as some cards and 
score-pads, and bridge agreeably whiled the 
time away in the omnibus until the beaters 
and sportsmen came into view. 

At the State Insane Asylum at Poughkeep- 
sie bridge is often played, and some of the 
female patients are, I am told, extremely 
proficient at the game. I am assured, how- 
ever, that most of these ladies have an ex- 
aggerated idea of their skill, an unhappy de- 
lusion shared by millions of their more for- 
tunate sisters without the walls of insane pa- 
vilions. 

But the most extraordinary feminine in- 
143 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

stance of bridge under high pressure was the 
case of Mrs. James Thompson, of Fourth 
avenue, Detroit. This little incident found 
its way into the Detroit papers and was wide- 
ly copied in all the press of America, 
and I am glad to quote it, as It shows that 
women sometimes possess, under trying cir- 
cumstances, a truly admirable philosophical 
spirit as well as a lively Interest In bridge. 

Mrs. Thompson had gone, one winter 
evening, to dine with some neighbors and play 
a friendly rubber or two. The match was 
a close one, and she was struggling valiantly 
to pull out the game with a very Indifferent 
no-trumper, when some friends rushed In, 
and. In a state of almost frenetlcal excitement, 
announced to Mrs. Thompson that her house 
was on fire and would soon be beyond all hope 
of saving. The guests flew to the windows 
and saw that the house was already a pillar 
of flame. Mrs. Thompson seemed a trifle 
saddened by the catastrophe which was be- 
falling her, but quite as much vexed by the 
untimely Interruption to the game. She soon 
sat down again at the table and remarked, 
144 



THE LADIES 



as though nettled by the Intrusion of the new- 
comers: "Come on; let's finish." 

At this point a reporter from a local paper 
was admitted, and asked Mrs. Thompson 
what she had to say about the conflagration. 

" I don't know anything about it," she said 
a little testily. " The house is on fire, as you 
can plainly see, but we are luckily on the out- 
side and that is all there is to it." 

With this she triumphantly played the 
queen of diamonds, and was soon completely 
under the spell of the game again. 

Although this Is an extreme instance of 
women's devotion to bridge, I must admit 
that I have, of late, been surprised to see 
what a firm hold the game has taken on them, 
both on this side of the water and in Eng- 
land. 

Sometimes we almost regret that women 
play bridge so much. It develops in them — 
even more than it does in men — trying little 
eccentricities and peculiarities of character. 
My readers will probably know what I mean. 
Let us consider a very few examples. To be- 
gin with there Is — 

145 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

( 1 ) The lady who plays with such a pro- 
fessional air that we feel quite helpless and 
hopeless from the very start of the game. 
(The rapidity and precision with which she 
gathers and stacks her tricks is truly appall- 
ing.) 

(2) The belle who only plays for amuse- 
ment, " So you needn't expect me to take the 
game seriously — for I shan't." 

(3) The great card holder. (The Chris- 
tian Fathers used to say that if one thought 
murder, one had, in sober truth, committed 
it. Merciful Heavens! How many of 
these women have I played against — and 
killed?) 

(4) The post-mortem lady. 

(5) The creature who says: "But how 
was I to know that you held," etc. 

(6) The fidget. 

(7) The matron who remarks: "Well, 
Elwell says — " 

(8) The chatterbox. 

(9) The young lady who, after leaving it 
and getting the inevitable spade, pounces on 
all the cards, paws and pores over them — in 
order to see what would have happened at 

146 



THE LADIES 



hearts, or no trumps, or whatever other make 
she may originally have had in her mind. 

( lo) The prosperous woman whose fingers 
literally swarm with rings and whose nails are 
so red and so polished and so shiny that they 
always make me think of the line in " Mac- 
beth " : 

"This my hand will rather the manicurious 
nails incarnadine, etc." 

The poor ladies ! How they catch it from 
the critics and the comic papers ! Very feebly 
and humbly, I should like to say that they 
sometimes (very rarely, of course) deserve 
it. I am sure that anybody who has watched 
a ladies' bridge tournament, for valuable 
prizes, will agree with me that there is more 
than a grain of truth in all these comic-sup- 
plement jibes. 

A lady was once kind enough to explain 
the whole tournament miracle to me very 
clearly. It seems that It Is all due to wom- 
an's original sin — and love of prizes. It 
is the result, as It were, of a deep-rooted fem- 
inine depravity. 

The lady went on: " Now, take my case, 
147 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

for example. I played in a tournament only 
yesterday. I won at three tables and gradu- 
ated to the last table — that reserved for the 
finalists. We sat down, cut for the deal, and 
began our struggle. The other players went 
into the tea-room or drove to their respective 
houses, leaving us four alone in the card-room. 
We all played fast, and fairly, and well. It 
was two rubbers all, and game all. So far 
no blood had been shed; there had not been 
a squabble, an insinuation, or an unkind word : 
not a kick or a scratch or a bite. A more 
quiet, ladylike contest you never beheld, and 
I am certain that all would have gone along 
smoothly to the end if the hostess had not, at 
that moment, perpetrated a truly despicable 
crime. 

" She came into the room and put the 
prizes upon the table where we were playing, 
under our very eyes, and left them there. 
The prizes were lovely gold purses. Now, 
you know that I have plenty of money and any 
quantity of gold purses. I did not, as a mat- 
ter of fact, need a purse at all, but those 
wretched golden things just sat there and 
glared at us. They hypnotized us all. It 
148 



THE LADIES 



is useless to deny it. Women are intoxicated 
by such things. 

" I assure you that our entire moral na- 
tures underwent a sea change. We did things 
and said things and looked things that were 
positively criminal. A curious, psychologi- 
cal change seemed to be sweeping over us. I 
could have cheated or peeked or kicked my 
partner on the shins, and when, finally, she 
revoked and swore that she hadn't, I natur- 
ally took her side — being her partner — and 
that led to a terrible row. I really had some 
hopes that we would come to blows but we 
finally quieted down and went on with the rub- 
ber. 

" Well, we lost, of course, and that nasty 
Bartlett woman and her odious sister got the 
purses, after all ! I feel as If I never wanted 
to speak to them again. As I told you, I 
have two or three gold purses already, but I 
hated to see those Bartlett creatures winning 
such lovely prizes simply by cheating, for I 
am almost sure that that Is the only way they 
managed to beat us." 

Speaking of tournaments reminds me that 
last year at a ladies' bridge club In Newport, 
149 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

a tournament was given with rather a tragic 
ending. This club was used almost entirely 
by the older ladies of the colony. This fact 
gave point to the somewhat cruel and unchar- 
itable remark of a Newport bachelor who 
never spoke of the club except as " The Hags' 
Hell." In this particular tournament indi- 
vidual scores were kept, and a first and sec- 
ond prize had been generously provided by 
Mrs. B., one of the lady members. 

As bad luck would have it two of the ladies 
tied for second prize. This led to a great 
deal of excited discussion among them as to 
what should be done. Finally the tourna- 
ment committee suggested that the two ladies 
should cut for the second prize. One of the 
contestants, who was about sixty years of age 
and had a decided will of her own, was very 
much averse to doing this. She remarked, 
in a loud voice, that she had won a prize and 
was not going to be " done out of it." 

At this point the lady donor took a hand 
in the fracas and said that she could arrange 
the matter in no other way. With rather a 
bad grace the elderly siren assented; cut the 
pack — and lost. Her nerves, disappoint- 
150 



THE LADIES 



ment and annoyance were rapidly getting the 
best of her. She looked the mortified donor 
straight in the eye and remarked, in a very 
acrid tone : 

" Well, all I can say is that somebody Is 
getting fearfully stingy ! I win a prize and 
get nothing at all. I never heard of such an 
imposition in all my life ! " 

With this sally she marched solemnly out 
of the club and stepped haughtily into her 
waiting victoria. 

I recently heard a most remarkable story 
about a lady's run of good luck at bridge. 

At first, it surprised me greatly, but, when 
I heard the facts of the case I was a little less 
astonished. A lady in Baltimore assured me 
that she had won the odd trick, or more. In 
over fourteen hundred consecutive hands. I 
was incredulous, but she hastened to explain 
that she did not play the hands In the usual 
way — with a partner. 

It seems that her husband Is devoted to his 
club, where, like nearly all husbands, he 
merely goes " to read in the library and write 
letters." This leaves the poor lady a great 
deal alone in the evenings, and, being a close 
151 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

student of bridge, she gets out her table and 
deals the pack into four piles. She then ar- 
ranges the cards a little, so that the imag- 
inary adversaries won't, by any chance, get 
the best of her, and proceeds to play out the 
hand. If she finds that her opponents are 
a shade too strong for her, she again changes 
the position of the cards, snatching an ace or 
two from her adversaries, tucking them in 
her own hand, and replacing the aces by use- 
less twos and threes. In this way (but 
purely as a result of her skill, of course,) she 
has vanquished her opponents — in about five 
months — over fourteen hundred times. 
They have never yet been known to win the 
odd trick. She has even gone so far as to 
name her fancied opponents. She always 
thinks of them as two women In Baltimore 
whom she cordially detests and against whom 
she treasures a bitter animosity. 

This lady also tells the following true story 
about herself. She had not played the game 
very long before she was asked out to a bridge 
dinner, on St. Paul Street. A great card ex- 
pert was at the dinner, and, after the feast, 
the usual telltale signs of the game were ob- 

Ii2 



THE LADIES 



served. Card-tables were brought — score- 
blocks and cigarettes. 

She and her hostess were playing against 
the expert and the hostess' sister. The score 
was love all. The expert dealt and made it 
no trumps — with the ace of hearts, bare ; 
the ace and two small diamonds ; the ace and 
jack of spades; and seven clubs to the king, 
queen, jack. My friend looked at her hand 
and doubled, holding eight hearts to the king, 
queen, jack; the king and four of diamonds; 
the bare ace of clubs ; and the king and queen 
of spades. Now, she had only to open her 
long heart suit in order to make eight certain 
tricks and the game, as she had a practically 
sure entry in every suit. She became a trifle 
confused, however, and seemed to be in some 
uneasiness about her lead. 

" Oh, dear," she said, " I really don't know 
how or what to lead ! " 

The expert felt convinced that she would 
not have doubled unless she had held the ace 
of clubs. Now, this was the only card that 
worried him. If he could get rid of that, the 
rest would be easy. 

" Well, Mrs. N.," said he, " there is a 
^53 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 



very good rule to remember. When you arc 
in doubt, always lead an ace and have a look 
around." 

This seemed like excellent advice, so she 
confidently played out her ace of clubs. After 
this mortal error, it did not matter how she 
played. The expert could always be sure of 
three by cards and the game. He had been 
just sharp enough to try his little ruse, and he 
must have been keenly delighted with its en- 
tire success. 

Here is a little bridge anecdote that has a 
certain note of sadness in it, although we 
really find it hard to believe that ladies ever 
grow so rancid and despiteful. 

Mr. and Mrs. R. have been married for ten 
years. Mrs. R. has reached that delightful 
point in wedded bliss where she can quarrel 
with her husband all day long and still enjoy 
it. Mr. R. is a very keen bridger and never 
misses an evening in his club card-room, where 
he usually stays until close to eleven o'clock, 
when he pays up — or takes in — and jumps 
into a cab, prepared to face the inevitable ver- 
bal encounter at his home. Mrs. R. permits 
him to play in the evening, solely on the un- 
154 



THE LADIES 



derstanding that he shall always arrive home 
before eleven o'clock, that being her invariable 
hour for retiring. 

On this particular occasion, however, he 
has been caught in a long rubber and it is 
nearly half-past the hour before he noiselessly 
slips his key into the door, turns it, and creeps, 
in his creaking boots, stealthily up the stairs 
to his dressing room. Arrived in this harbor 
of refuge, he feels a certain sense of safety — 
but not for long ! 

Before he has had time to remove his guilty 
boots, he hears the familiar voice outside his 
dressing room, followed, almost directly, by 
the familiar face at the door. 

" A nice time to come home 1 Why did 
you bother to come home at all? Why not 
play your silly game all night? " 

" My dear Henrietta, I'm really very sorry, 
but I got into an infernally long rubber, and 
it is a rule among gentlemen that, having 
started a rubber, one ought to finish it." 

" Well, I don't believe there is any such 
rule at all." 

" Well, my dear, perhaps you know more 
about the rules than I do." 
155 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 



" Well ! There's one bridge rule that I do 
know all about, and I'm going to see that you 
keep it, too." 

" What is that, Henrietta? " 

" The rule of eleven, and the very next time 
that you play bridge after eleven o'clock, you'll 
find out what the penalty is ! Do you under- 
stand?" 

I have lately been much impressed by the 
large number of ladies who are giving bridge 
lessons in the East. 

In a recent issue of Whist I saw the adver- 
tisement of four women bridge teachers, in 
Boston alone. I should say that there must 
be ten in New York, and at least five in Phila- 
delphia, so that bridge may be said to have 
opened a new career for women, a career that, 
though exacting, must be fairly lucrative, as 
the usual charge of a good man teacher in 
New York is ten dollars an hour for four peo- 
ple; that is to say, two dollars and fifty cents 
for each person. I am told that one man 
teacher gets as high as twenty dollars an hour. 
This seems like a high price, but I fancy that, 
notwithstanding his golden double-eagle, his 
hour is not often a happy one. 

156 



THE LADIES 



One of these teachers told me an amusing 
incident in connection with his lessons in Bos- 
ton. It seems that three very prim and con- 
ventional old maids, who lived together on 
Newbury Street, decided to learn bridge. 
Mr. Elstreet was accordingly called in. A 
price of ten dollars was agreed upon for each 
evening lesson. The first meeting of the class 
was marked by a decided note of stiffness and 
formality. The presence in the house of a 
young man in a dress suit, a young man who 
was good naturedly badgering and scolding 
them, was evidently a great strain on these 
autocratic and punctilious old ladies. 

After the lesson Mr. Elstreet, with great 
affability, bade them all good night and 
started for the hall. He noticed that one of 
the ladies, the eldest, gauntest and primmest 
of the three, was following him, in an awk- 
ward and embarrassed way, out of the draw- 
ing-room. 

Something serious was evidently on her 
mind. Finally, with a little movement of shy- 
ness, she closed up the gap between them and 
whispered hurriedly in his ear : " Oh, Mr. 
Elstreet, as you go out you'll find ten dollars 
157, 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

in the lining of your hat." Having dehvered 
this dehcate and tactful message in the hall, 
she retreated again in quick alarm to the 
drawing-room. 

I remember once hearing a lady say that 
she was surprised to see how little her bridge- 
teacher knew about the game. Her instruc- 
tor was a lady in reduced circumstances and 
her game — I can speak from experience — 
certainly left a good deal to be desired. 

" What can you expect? " the tired martyr 
once said to me. " I was so poor that I had 
to do something, and, as I like playing cards 
better than anything else, I thought I would 
teach bridge. I am doing splendidly, and as 
soon as I can lay aside a little money I mean 
to take lessons and learn something about the 
game myself." 

Perhaps the most shocking bridge incident 
of the past year was revealed in the fashiona- 
ble G • divorce proceedings in New York, 

when it was darkly intimated by counsel that a 
love of bridge was one of the wife's dominat- 
ing passions. It even appeared that at one 
card-party she had so far forgotten herself 
as to bite the hostess on the arm. 

158 



THE LADIES 



" Puck " asked the opinion of a friend of 
mine — Mr. C. — as to the etiquette in such 
matters. He advised them to print the fol- 
lowing note, editorially: 

We must candidly confess that we rarely play 
an entire rubber of bridge without longing to bite, 
kick, shoot, strangle, or otherwise assault our part- 
ner, but in this case it appears that the bitee was 
not a partner but an adversary, which changes the 
entire moral complexion of the case. 

Now what should the penalty be for such a mor- 
dant, madcap whim? Before we can attempt to 
decide so nice a question of card etiquette we should 
have light on the following points: (i) Was she 
biting through a " tailor-made " or a " peek-a- 
boo"? (2) How often did she bite her? (3) 
Was the wound a mortal one? (4) Did the hos- 
tess bite her back? 

These questions are all vital. Failing any exact 
information on them we recommend the infliction 
of one of the severest penalties known in bridge; 
namely, the call of a suit from the biter's hand. 
The case is naturally aggravated by the fact that it 
was the hostess who was attacked. Had it been a 
mere guest no penalty could have been exacted ex- 
cept the demand for a new deal. 

N. B. — The original biter can in no case score 
game or slam. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE HATEFUL PROCESS OF DISGORGING 

The best method of discarding (or dis- 
gorging) at bridge, both at no trumps and 
with a declared trump, has been a matter of 
controversy and jest ever since the game was 
invented. I regret to say that this discussion 
is still raging all over the civilized world. 

There are to-day seven recognized systems 
of discarding, as follows : ( i ) From weak- 
ness; (2) from strength; (3) the French; 
(4) the seven; (5) the circular; (6) the 
Canadian; (7) the mixed — from weakness 
and strength combined. Now, this embarras 
de choix leads to an immense amount of con- 
fusion and anguish. Every time we sit down 
to a rubber with a strange partner we are 
forced to go through with that tiresome but 
inevitable prologue : " Partner, have you any 
marked eccentricities In discarding? Are you 
a sane man or are you, perhaps, a votary of 
160 



DISGORGING 



hizarrerie? If so, will you please be good 
enough to draw me a careful blueprint and 
diagram of your system, not forgetting, of 
course, the Maltese cross to show the spot 
where you suddenly fly off from your system 
and alight on another? " 

Imagine inviting a company to dinner and, 
before so much as attacking the caviare, in- 
terrogating all our hungry guests as follows : 
" Are you a vegetarian — if so, green or 
white? " " Do you Fletcherize your puree? " 
" Will you kindly permit me to eat starch 
foods if I permit you to eat grape-nuts ? " 
" Do you prefer sugar or maple syrup on your 
oysters? " 

What a bore it is, to be sure, this eternal 
questioning and explaining. Fortunately the 
discussion sometimes leads us into the pleasant 
paths of humor, as, for instance, in this little 
joke, presumably of a wholly English, if not 
altogether refined, origin. 

Passenger, on a Channel turbine : " I say, 
dear boy ! What ought a chap to eat before 
making this devilish crossing? It's my first 
trip to the Continent, you know. A Johnny 
at the club tipped me to feed up jolly well — 
i6i 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

bloater, mutton chop, ale, apple tart, coffee, a 
pipe, and all that sort of thing. My mater, 
on the other hand, says only hot water and a 
wafer of plasmon. How say you — what? " 

Fellow Passenger : " My dear old boy, it's 
simply a matter of whether you prefer dis- 
carding from weakness or strength." 

Let me turn from gay to grave and implore 
my readers to listen to reason and adopt the 
usually accepted method of discarding — 
from weakness. It has stood the test for a 
dozen years and is by far the most frequent 
discard that we meet with. I may even ven- 
ture the assertion — knowing well that a furi- 
ous storm of missiles and imprecations will 
rain about my defenseless head — that four 
out of five of the really good players in the 
world use the weak discard. At the risk of 
seeming to instruct — always a tiresome task 
for the listeners, but sometimes not a wholly 
uncongenial occupation to the instructor — 
I shall quote what I consider ten of the sanest, 
simplest and most rational hints on discard- 
ing that I have ever heard. They were 
taught me, long ago, by Mr. Charles S. Street, 
an acknowledged authority on the game. 
162 



DISGORGING 



( 1 ) When you have a chance for only one 
discard, try to make that as Instructive and In- 
formative as possible, taking fully Into ac- 
count dummy's displayed hand. 

(2) The discard of a low card — 2, 3, 4 
or 5 — is from a suit that you do not wish 
your partner to lead. 

(3) If, at no trumps, dummy has a strong 
or long suit, which your partner would be un- 
likely to change to, don't discard from that 
suit, but from another. This will mark the 
third suit in your hand. Your play is not to 
show weakness, but to guide him infallibly to 
his next choice. 

(4) A reverse discard, first a high card 
and then a lower one in the same suit, shows 
that you have strength in that suit. In play- 
ing a reverse discard make your first card as 
high as possible — without fear of loss. In 
fact, the single discard of a card as high as 
the eight or nine — where one discard only is 
possible — is usually understood as the begin- 
ning of a reverse and indicative of strength. 

(5) To discard first from one suit and 
then from another marks the third suit as 
strong in your hand. 

163 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

(6) To discard twice from the same suit 

— in an upward scale — asks your partner to 
change to that one of the other two which 
best suits his hand, or in which he can render 
you the best assistance. 

(7) The discard of an ace shows other 
cards equally high in that suit, while a king 
shows other cards equally high, without the 
ace. 

(8) Do not discard all, or the only one, of 
a suit. Save one, if possible, to follow suit 
with on the first round. 

(9) Try to save one of your partner's suit 
to return to him. 

(10) If possible, save one guard for an 
ace or a king; two guards for a queen; and 
three for a jack or a ten. A jack and two 
small is a dangerous suit to discard from. 

I think that these rules of Mr. Street's have 
only to be read to be approved and, I trust, 
adopted. 

A masculine player should always try to 
follow a fixed method of discarding. With 
every deference to the ladies — always a 
standing toast with me, and usually a bumper 

— I know, alas, too well, that it is useless to 

164 



DISGORGING 



expect them to adhere to any one system of 
discarding. In the animal kingdom — par- 
ticularly in such orders of life as are above 
the sponge or the invertebrate worms — the 
charm of the female is chiefly due to her beau- 
tiful variableness, and, to put it mildly, the 
flexibility of her moral fibre. Let no bridge 
player expect from her a fixed allegiance to 
any single system. 

A long acquaintance with them has taught 
me that they are, in bridge, as in the other con- 
cerns of mortal life, a beautiful, if enigmati- 
cal mixture of weakness and strength. To 
prove that the wit and humor spent upon the 
subject of disgorging at bridge are not all on 
the other side of the Atlantic I must quote 
a cheerful sally recently perpetrated by Mr. 
Street. I must begin by explaining that a 
heated and furious discussion has been raging 
in the whist papers for the past few months 
between the advocates of the strength discard 
and the champions of weakness. 

Mr. R. F. Foster, representing the strong, 
and Mr. Street, representing the weak, have 
been battling royally in the pages of Whist. 
Mr. Foster, in hurling his farewell bomb, said 

165 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

that there were dally deserters from the ranks 
of the weak discarders, and he drew attention 
to the fact that these deserters never returned 
to their fold. Mr. Street, in his reply, re- 
marked that the strength discard was a broken 
toy, which every child, grown to manhood, 
might safely throw aside. He closed his 
broadside with the following sally, which I 
quote verbatim: 

" Mr. Foster adds that every day there are 
deserters from the ranks of the weak dis- 
carders. He says that they never go back. 
This last statement is, no doubt, true. The 
State has made returns from certain of its 
public institutions most difficult." 

Apropos of this subject, I picked up a news- 
paper a short time ago and saw the following 
classic, which I quote, with apologies, as 
nearly as I can remember it. 

Tramp, to the lady of the house: " Can 
you give me something to eat, lady? I'm 
starving! " 

Lady: "No." 

Tramp : " Well ! Can you give me some 
old clothes? Winter is coming and I am 
up against it." 

1 66 



DISGORGING 



Lady: " I have nothing but a pair of my 
husband's trousers which he told me to throw 
away. If they would be of any use — " 

Tramp: "Thank you, lady! A good 
thick pair of pants is just what I want." 

Lady: " Well, I wouldn't be too hopeful 
about them. I hate to discourage you but 
my husband always discards from weakness." 

Here is a new system of discarding invented 
by Mr. W. G. Hammer Jr., of Virginia. It 
has been cordially recommended to advanced 
players, but I am afraid that It is a little too 
complicated for beginners. 

Let an odd card call for a black suit — 
spade or club. Let an even card call for red 
suits — hearts or diamonds. Now use the 
alphabet rule, C. D. H. S. — that Is, let a club 
call for a diamond, a diamond call for a 
heart, a heart call for a spade, a spade call for 
a club. Instead of the whole rule, one only 
needs use a part of It. Couple the first two 
suits together, club-diamond, then the last two, 
heart-spade. Club-diamond call for heart- 
spade — heart-spade call for club-diamond. 

Now, since an odd card calls for black suit, 
suppose we discard one, say, 3 of diamonds; 
167 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 



diamond discard calls for a heart-spade, but 
spade, being a black suit, you must want it, 
since you discard an odd card. Should you 
not have an odd diamond, you could discard 
an odd club ; club discard calls for a spade as 
well as a diamond. Should you want a club, 
you must discard an odd card, either a heart 
or spade. For a heart you must discard an 
even club or diamond. For a diamond you 
must discard an even heart or spade. 

The advantage of this discard is that you 
have two suits to throw from to show 
strength. To recapitulate: 

Club-diamond calls for hearts-spades. 

Heart-spade calls for clubs-diamonds. 

Odd cards call for black suits. 

Even cards call for red suits. 

Two, 4, 6, 8, lo diamonds and 2, 4, 6, 8, 
10 clubs all call for hearts. 

Two, 4, 6, 8, 10 hearts and 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 
spades all call for diamonds. 

Three, 5, 7, 9 hearts and 3, 5, 7, 9 spades 
all call for clubs. 

Three, 5, 7, 9 diamonds and 3, 5, 7, 9 clubs 
all call for spades. 



168 



CHAPTER X 

ROYAL AND ARISTOCRATIC BRIDGERS 

I KNOW of nothing more unholy than the 
rage which suffuses my soul when I play 
bridge with certain partners. 

The worst offender of them all is Mrs. 
W. R., in London, who, though a very beau- 
tiful woman, has every fault known to the 
cardplaying world. She hums, strums on 
the table, refuses to admit her mistakes, 
fancies her game, never sorts her cards, tells 
you what might have happened, hesitates, 
looks at the ceiling, and, worse and worse, 
will not lead trumps. 

Apropos of this lady, and her annoying 
habit of never getting out the trumps, there 
is a curious story. 

It seems that the Amir of Afghanistan Is 
an excellent bridge player. He recently sur- 
prised the club-men of London by his sound 
and thoughtful game. During his stay In 
169 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

England he went to visit Mrs. W. R.'s 

brother, Lord Ch , in Surrey. With 

him he took his swarthy aide-de-camp, an 
Oxford graduate, who turned out to be an 
even more brilliant player than his royal mas- 
ter. The aide-de-camp suffered the inevitable 
agonies, which Mrs. R.'s partners always fell 
heir to. Twice she " chucked " a rubber for 
him by not getting out the trumps. After 
the torture was over Mrs. R. pointed to the 
Amir, who was playing at another table, and 
asked the A. D. C. if he ever played bridge 
in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, of 
which, notwithstanding his English educa- 
tion, the A. D. C. was a native. 

" My royal master," he said, " recently 
taught the game to a few of his courtiers, 
and one of his wives; but our evening rubber 
is now, alas, always a ' stag ' affair, for, since 
the unfortunate accident to his wilful but 
beautiful wife, we can hardly hope for any 
more partners from the royal harem." 

" Accident," said Mrs. R. " What acci- 
dent was that? " 

" Ah," said the A. D. C. " It is a sad 
story. I must first Inform you that of all 
170 



ROYAL BRIDGERS 



the Amir's wives, Nama Mafufta was the 
best beloved. Before her rise to favor she 
had been a slave girl, a Circassian odalisque. 
In all ' Kabool ' — as we pronounce it — 
there was no maiden so fair, so enrapturing,- 
so worthy of an Amir's love as Nama, the 
Gleaming Eye of Heaven. She amused her- 
self, while playing bridge, by hesitating, 
gazing into space, humming little airs, thump- 
ing the toy tom-toms — or, as we call them, 
pharagimbos — and her manners were so nat- 
ural, well, Mrs. R., they resembled yours! 

" She had been taught to play bridge by 
the Amir, and soon became a fair player, but 
she had an unconquerable aversion to lead- 
ing trumps. Time and again the Amir 
would rage and storm, and time and again 
the Gleaming Eye of Heaven would allow 
her good suit-cards to be ruthlessly ruffed. 
On these occasions, the anger of my imperial 
master knew no bounds." 

" ' Hearken to me,' he would shout out in 
fury. ' I am a cruel and a headstrong ruler 
and my will must be obeyed. Nama, my 
beautiful songbird, mark you well my words. 
If, when it is next your turn to deal, you fail, 
171 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

on your very first opportunity, to lead out 
trumps in a declared trump hand, you will 
meet with a fate so terrible that the horror 
of it will forever echo throughout Kabul.' 

" Shortly after this the Circassian Eye of 
Heaven proceeded to deal. She picked up 
her cards, gazed at them for a long time, 
moved them about in her hand, hummed, 
started to speak, hesitated, looked at the 
golden lamp above her and then gazed again 
at her cards just as an English lady — you, 
for example — might have done. She finally 
declared a diamond. 

" Thinking, perhaps, that her royal master 
had been in a playful mood when he had 
chided her about her little failing, she risked 
one finesse In the spade suit before attacking 
the trumps. 

" Alas ! Poor Nama's queen of spades was 
trumped by third hand who, with his part- 
ner's aid, established a cross ruff in hearts 
and spades, as a result of which the game 
was lost to my all-powerful master and his 
heavenly Nama Mafufta. 

" The Amir's face was a terrible sight to 
behold — pale, ashen, grim as death. 
172 



ROYAL BRIDGERS 



" ' Enough ! ' he cried in a rage, and, turn- 
ing to his serving men, he fairly bellowed: 
' Bring to the palace gates the royal oxen and 
the golden chains.' " 

Here the A. D. C. paused. 

" Madame," he said, " I hardly dare to 
go on, I cannot bring myself to describe 
the horrors that ensued. They are too 
ghastly and shuddery but I can assure you that 
as the bewitching lady was led off to meet 
her terrible fate her last words were : 

" ' You see, I thought that if my queen 
finesse went through I could establish my 
spades and then lead trumps.' 

" While the heavenly body of the heavenly 
Nama was being sundered, limb from limb, 
by the royal oxen in the courtyard of the 
palace, the Amir calmly continued to shuffie 
the cards for the next deal, muttering savagely 
all the while : ' So perish the guilty in Ka- 
bul!'" 

" Well," said Mrs. W. R., after a long 
pause, *' I think the story Is an altogether 
idiotic one and I don't see why you bother 
to tell it to me, of all people? " 

How often, dear reader, have you longed 
173 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

to call loudly for the oxen and the chains? 

There is yet another story about a bridge- 
game, a lady, and a royal personage; and, 
as there is a very witty shaft In It, I may be 
excused for narrating It. 

This time the royal butt of It Is King Ed- 
ward of England, who, since 1898, has been 
an enthusiastic and inveterate bridge-player. 

It seems that the King had gone to the 
country to visit the Duke of Devonshire for 
the week-end. One of the guests was Lord 
G., (a rather vulgar bounder) whom the 
king had, a short while before, raised to 
the peerage — presumably for value received. 
Another " creation " of the same sort was 
also of the house-party. In the evening, a 
rubber was made up of the King, the late 
duchess, Mrs. K., and Lord G. One of the 
onlookers was Mr. N., a well-known wit and 
diner-out, v/ho had that morning been out- 
rageously snubbed by the vulgar Lord G. 
Mr. N. could find no words In which to 
characterize " these bounders " who had been, 
he thought, so shamelessly ennobled. On the 
last hand of the rubber Mrs. K. dealt and 
left It to the King, who, after some heslta- 
174 



ROYAL BRIDGERS 



tlon, declared no trumps, a make which was 
promptly doubled by Lord G., the leader. 
When the King's dummy went down there 
was a gasp from Mrs. K., his partner. The 
hand consisted of the ace, king, knave of clubs, 
four hearts to the knave, four diamonds to 
the knave, and the knave and ten of spades. 

The King looked at Mrs. K. in amused 
surprise at her apparent disapproval of the 
make. 

" Sir," she answered, " I know perfectly 
well that the king can do no wrong, but there 
is a Hmit even to the divine right of mon- 
archs; and besides, sir, my heart is, as you 
know, affected." 

Lord G. had soon cleaned up four by cards 
on the hand and started to add up the rub- 
ber. A few moments later he turned to Mr. 
N., with whom he had made a side bet on 
the match, and asked him in a whisper what 
he thought of the King's declaration. 

" Hardly sound," murmured N., " but 
easily explained. You see. His Majesty is 
so used to raising knaves to power that he 
sometimes fancies they can be made the equals 
of kings and queens." 

175 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

Bridge stories about King Edward seem 
to have no end. Here is another one. 

Mrs. T., a very charming American widow, 
went to England last year for her first visit. 
She was asked to a country house, where the 
King was also a guest. His Majesty, who is 
a great admirer of feminine pulchritude, asked 
to play at the same table as the young Amer- 
ican widow. They cut against each other, 
and the matter of stakes was soon under re- 
view. 

" What, sir, would you like to lose, as I 
warn you that I am an extremely lucky 
player? " 

The king's reply was to the point. " Not 
a penny, if I can help it — and how much 
do you want to winf " 

" A sovereign, sir," looking straight at 
the king. 

" I can assure you, Mrs, T.," said the king, 
" that you won a sovereign the moment that 
I first beheld you." 

They say that the greatest card gambling 
countries of the world are Poland, Russia, 
Austria, Greece and Hungary, and that, of 
176 



ROYAL BRIDGERS 



all these, the Austrians are the most inveterate 
and incurable. 

I well remember Count A., an Austrian of 
the most exalted family who came to this coun- 
try a few years ago and who treated me to one 
of the prettiest exhibitions of nerve, or blunted 
morality — one may call it by either name — 
that I have ever beheld. He and I had gone 
to a Long Island house party for Friday to 
Monday. We found the house full of peo- 
ple, some of whom proverbially played bridge 
for high stakes. Count A. was a man of 
irreproachable breeding but deplorable means. 
He had run through three separate fortunes 
and had nothing to show for it except the 
reputation of being an excellent baccarat and 
bridge player. He had drifted to New York, 
presumably on the usual errand — to espouse 
an heiress. He was a singularly attractive 
creature and I had conceived a great liking 
for him, on the few occasions that I had met 
him before our house party. On Friday 
evening, bridge was suggested and three ta- 
bles were formed, one for very high stakes 
and two for moderate points. At one o'clock 
177 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

Count A. had lost three hundred dollars at 
the high table. He came up to my room 
for a cigarette and complained good-naturedly 
of his persistent bad luck, which, he admitted 
had left him with a bare two hundred dollars 
on his letter of credit. With this sum he 
thought that he could manage to get back 
to Vienna for which place he had planned to 
leave in two days time, for the reason, I 
guessed, that he had found the heiresses a 
trifle gun-shy. I suggested a small loan, but 
he indignantly refused to listen to such an 
Idea. 

On Saturday afternoon he again " sat in " 
the same game and lost two hundred dollars, 
with the easy, careless, and debonair grace pe- 
culiar to his kind. His predicament, I really 
believe, worried him less than It did me. 
Late on Saturday evening somebody sug- 
gested a game of toy roulette, and Count A. 
was altogether delighted with the suggestion 
but he begged to be allov/ed to begin the 
bank. This plan seemed to meet with general 
favor and the green cloth and the little wheel 
were brought in by the servants. The game 
soon started with counters of one, two, five, 
178 



ROYAL BRIDGERS 



and ten dollars. The ladies had gone to bed 
and there were eight gentlemen punting 
against the bank. Count A. spun the marble 
and lost about fifty dollars on his first roll. 
On his second he must have lost twice that 
amount. Notwithstanding the fact that he 
literally did not know how to get back to 
Vienna, his manner was as unconcerned and 
care-free as if he were playing for pennies. 
I entirely lost sight of his — shall I say ? — 
moral turpitude, and found myself only mar- 
veling at his coolness and audacity. 

To cut a long tale short, at the end of an 
hour's play he had won back all his losses 
at bridge and about a hundred and fifty dol- 
lars besides. 

Absurd as he had been to allow himself 
to be put in such a hole I could not but admire 
the sang-froid with which he had pulled him- 
self out of it. I hear you saying: " What if 
he had lost? How would he have paid the 
gentlemen who won against him? " " Well," 
I answer, " he would have borrowed it from 
his consul, or scraped the ' needful ' together 
in some mysterious way known only to gam- 
blers — and to Austrlans." 
179 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

Count A. was, to be sure, one of the very 
best bridge players that I have ever met and 
the chances of his winning at the game were 
greatly In his favor. He combined every 
species of Intrepidity and cunning, and, when 
he found, in a given hand, that a particular 
line of attack or defense was no longer prac- 
ticable he changed to new tactics, like a salmon 
on a line, with a cleverness and quickness that 
were truly wonderful. His adroitness in mis- 
leading an adversary and in uniting his forces 
with his partner's, was little short of mar- 
velous. The caprices of his partner seemed, 
Indeed, to be known to him beforehand, and 
his power of adapting himself to a bad part- 
ner and inspiring confidence In him would be 
a revelation to many of our so-called experts. 



i8o 



CHAPTER XI 

TRAGEDIES, SURPRISES AND HORRORS 

It is surprising, in playing bridge, to note 
how many hands are helped and how many 
are ruined by the opening lead. 

If a player were blessed with some de- 
moniacal power of divination so that his open- 
ing lead were always suited to the peculiarities 
of the twenty-six cards held jointly by the 
dealer and dummy, he would be invincible 
at bridge and his profits would be enormous. 

Take, for instance, the singleton lead. I 
beheve that many hands are saved by a short 
opening but I also believe that more hands 
are ruined by it. In many, many cases a short 
opening will wreck a hand beyond any power 
of saving. In many cases an opening from 
a long suit will do the same. There is no 
knowing, before the lead, what terrible pit- 
falls destiny has prepared for you. I have 
seen countless rubbers lost because of a cor- 
i8i 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

rect opening. Indeed, I believe that the 
proper or regular opening of a hand proves 
disastrous in one hand out of every three. 

Here is an example! The other evening 
I was playing a rubber with three gentlemen 
on a Southern express train. The hands were 
as follows: The dealer held queen, jack, lo 
9, 7 of hearts; jack, lo, 8 of diamonds; ace, 
queen, lo of clubs; king, and jack of spades. 

The dummy held the 4, 3, and 2 of hearts; 
jack, 9, 4 and 2 of clubs; 9, 8, 7, 5, 4 and 2 
of spades, and no diamonds. 

The leader held the king and 6 of hearts; 
ace, king, queen, 4 of diamonds; 7, 6 and 
3 of clubs; ace, queen, 10 and 3 of spades. 

I was playing third hand and held ace, 
8 and 5 of hearts; 9, 7, 6, 5, 3 and 2 of 
diamonds; king, 8, 5 of clubs; and the single- 
ton 6 of spades. The score was, dealer and 
dummy, 6; leader and partner, 16. The 
dealer declared hearts. 

Here was a hand in which there was only 

one correct opening — the king of diamonds. 

Not one good player in a thousand would 

have opened it in any other way, and yet the 

182 



TRAGEDIES AND SURPRISES 

play would have cost us the game. The 
dealer would have ruffed the king of dia- 
monds In the dummy, come over to his queen 
of clubs, ruffed another diamond, come over 
to his 10 of clubs, ruffed another diamond, 
come over to his ace of clubs and then made 
three heart tricks — a total of nine tricks or 
twenty-four points and the game. 

The worst possible opening of this hand 
was certainly the king of hearts and yet It 
was the one opening that could utterly defeat 
the dealer and score game for me and my 
partner. Now It happened that my partner 
meant to lead the king of diamonds but he 
carelessly pulled out the king of hearts and 
played It Instead. When he saw that it held 
the trick he went on, (by a sort of inspired 
stupidity) with his low heart, which I took 
with the ace. At this point I led my third 
heart as I thought my partner must have a 
good reason for the trump lead. Incredible 
as It may seem we gathered in three diamond 
tricks, two spades and one club, which, with 
our two heart tricks, made for us two by 
cards and the game. Here Is a difference of 
183 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

five tricks saved to the leader by a prepos- 
terous, careless and altogether inexcusable 
opening. 

I am reminded of another extraordinary 
hand that was recently played at the Turf 
Club in London and that caused an immense 
amount of discussion among bridge players. 
It was an instance, in actual play, of how a 
wrong lead sometimes helps the leader and 
his partner. 

The dealer had left the make to dummy, 
who had declared no trumps, with the single- 
ton king of clubs; king, jack of diamonds; 
ace, king, eight of hearts; ace, king, jack, ten, 
eight, seven, and four of spades. 

The leader held ace, queen, jack, six, five, 
three of clubs; nine, two of diamonds; seven, 
five, four of hearts; and six and three of 
spades. 

Third hand held seven, four, two of clubs ; 
ace, queen, ten, eight, seven, six, three of 
diamonds; jack, ten of hearts; and two of 
spades. 

The dealer held ten, nine, eight of clubs; 
five and four of diamonds; queen nine, six, 
184 



TRAGEDIES AND SURPRISES 

five, and three of hearts; queen, nine, and 
five of spades. 

Here Is a hand — the leader's — that 
should always be opened with the queen of 
clubs, as it lacks an entry card in another 
suit with which to get in and make the clubs. 
The ace is a wretched opening, and no sound 
player would think of so opening the hand. 
This leader, however, was not a careful player, 
and he opened with his ace, which dropped 
the singleton king in the dummy. After the 
leader had made his six clubs, he allowed his 
partner to take seven tricks In diamonds, or 
a matter of a grand slam. Had he opened 
his hand correctly, that is, with the queen 
of clubs, the dealer and dummy would have 
made one club trick, five hearts, and seven 
spades, or a grand slam. In other words — 
play rightly, and you lose every trick; play 
wrongly and you win every trick. 

To digress a little, I must give an example 
of how players sometimes confuse, in their 
own minds, their bad luck and their lack of 
skill. This instance came to my attention 
a short time ago when Messrs. H., F., B., 

185 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 



and W. were playing an afternoon rubber at 
the Knickerbocker Club in New York. 

The dealer left it to dummy, whose hand 
was as follows : Clubs : ace, king, queen, jack, 
5, 3, 2. Diamonds: king, jack, 7. Hearts: 
8. Spades: 9, 3. The dealer held the ace 
and three small diamonds, four small hearts, 
four small clubs, and the lone king of spades. 
The leader had five hearts to the jack, three 
small spades, three small diamonds, and two 
small clubs. 

Dummy looked at his hand carefully and 
declared " no trumps." It seems that he had 
meant to say " clubs," but he was pouring out 
a cup of tea and smoking a long cigar and 
giving an order to a servant, so that he had 
become confused and inadvertently said " no 
trumps." Third hand doubled, on the ace 
king, queen of hearts, the ace, queen, jack 
10, 8, 6, 5, of spades, the queen and two 
small diamonds and no clubs. Dummy re 
doubled, still thinking he had made it clubs 
and third hand said " enough." 

As dummy laid down his hand he re^ 
marked to the third hand: " I don't see what 
186 



TRAGEDIES AND SURPRISES 

you doubled on, I have every trump in the 
pack." 

"Trumps?" screamed third hand. 
" There aren't any trumps. It's no trumps ! " 

A confused discussion then arose and it 
was finally decided that as the dummy had 
clearly said " No trumps," the make must 
stand, but, for some obscure and fanciful rea- 
son, they agreed that it should stand at twenty- 
four per trick and not at forty-eight. 

The leader led the knave of hearts and 
third hand overtook with his queen. At this 
point if third hand had played his ace of 
spades, as he should have done, he would 
have made ten tricks, doubled, or ninety-six 
points. Instead of doing so he led his queen 
of spades, in order, as he naively said, to 
" fool the dealer." 

The lone king of spades of course held the 
trick, after which stroke of luck the dealer 
proceeded to make seven clubs and four dia- 
monds, or twelve tricks — one hundred and 
forty-four points — besides twenty for the 
slam and one hundred for the rubber. 

This stupid play actually occurred and ac- 
187 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

tually cost the leader and third hand twenty- 
three dollars each, at five-cent points, or forty- 
six dollars for the two. After it was all over, 
third hand of course blamed his luck most 
roundly and almost abused his partner for 
not holding the king of spades. The whole 
hand was an extraordinary one, and, while 
the dealer and dummy had begun it by feeling 
a sense of impending disaster, they finished 
it in a whirl of good nature and elation. 

I remember another very amusing instance 
of a mistaken declaration. This occurred at 
the Racquet Club in New York a few years 
ago, and Mr. D. was the hero of the episode. 
After looking carefully at his hand Mr. D., 
the dealer, declared hearts. He had meant 
to declare clubs, being twenty-four on the rub- 
ber game and having six clubs in his hand, 
but his mind was wandering and some demon 
of perversity had made him say " hearts." 
Before he had even realized his blunder the 
leader had doubled. Mr. D. tried meekly to 
explain that his call had been made in error, 
but, after a mild protest from his adversaries, 
he finally accepted the inevitable with the 
i88 



TRAGEDIES AND SURPRISES 

easy grace and good nature which have always 
characterized his play. 

His hand was as follows: Ace, king and 
two small diamonds; three small hearts; six 
clubs, to the jack, 9; no spades. Dummy 
went down with four hearts to the queen; 
two small diamonds; seven spades to the jack; 
no clubs. The leader held ace, king, jack, 
ten of hearts; ace, queen, 10 of spades; king, 
queen, 10 of clubs; and queen, 9, 6, of dia- 
monds. Third hand held king, 9, 7, of 
spades; ace and three small clubs; two small 
hearts; jack, 10 and two small diamonds. 

The leader, feeling pretty confident of a 
" killing," led the king of clubs, probably the 
most correct opening of the hand. The 
dealer smiled an ample smile and proceeded 
to business. When the slaughter was over 
the dealer had ruffed three clubs in dummy, 
as well as three spades in his own hand; he 
had made his ace and king of diamonds, and 
had ruffed the third round of diamonds with 
dummy's last trump, making three by cards 
or forty-eight points. This was, of course, 
a phenomenal distribution of the cards, but 
189 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

It actually occurred and the leader was left, at 
the end of the holocaust, grimly clutching his 
four good honors In hearts, while everything 
else had been ruthlessly swept away from 
him. Had the leader. In this hand, played 
three rounds of trumps — an irregular thing 
to do, to be sure — he and his partner would 
have won three by cards instead of losing 
them. It seems almost incredible that so poor 
a collection of cards as was held by the dealer 
and dummy could have won three by cards 
against such a battery of aces and honors as 
was held by the leader and third hand. 

The gentleman who played this hand Is 
an exceedingly clever player, but he has a 
very great fault and one that Is a common 
one among many fine bridgers. In most 
respects his game is without a flaw, but he 
has an insane desire to " steal " tricks, that 
Is — by craft, by waiting, by double finesses, 
by silly leads, and by false-carding, he some- 
times gains a trick or two. His joy when 
such tactics succeed Is so great that he man- 
ages to lose sight of the countless tricks he 
has, In the meantime, lost by such Macchla- 
velllan wiles. I once ventured to express to 
190 



TRAGEDIES AND SURPRISES 

him my disapprobation of his style of play. 
My remark nettled him greatly. 

" Look here," he said, " Mr. Dalton re- 
cently contributed to the Strand Magazine 
a very enlightening article on the absurd 
blunders which he had seen at the bridge- 
table, during his long career as a player. 
Now, you are a writer, aren't you? Well! 
why don't you write a few articles for some 
American magazine on the blunders which 
you yourself have committed at the game? 
No one that I know is better qualified to 
write about bad bridge than you are, and, 
just think of it, you could go on writing the 
articles for years." 

Now, I freely admit that I rarely play 
an evening without making blunders — that 
Is a part of the fun of bridge — but I con- 
sider that the straight and normal game will 
win more tricks. In the long run, than the 
methods employed by my cunning friend. 

Speaking of tragedies and horrors at 
bridge reminds me of a truly terrible thing 
which once befell my friend, R. F. Foster, 
at the Knickerbocker Whist Club in New 
York. It is really one of the saddest stories 
191 



J 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

of blighted bridge hopes that I have ever 
heard. It was Foster's deal and he picked 
up the ace, queen, and eight of clubs, the 
queen and four little diamonds, no hearts, 
and five little spades. He left the make to 
dummy who declared hearts on the six top 
hearts, the king and three little clubs, no 
spades, and the ace, king, jack of diamonds. 
The leader, Mr. McDonald, led the jack of 
clubs, and Mr. Foster, seeing the two hands, 
and without playing from dummy, spread out 
his hand on the table and remarked: 
" Grand salammbo, unless somebody has 
seven hearts in one hand." Foster could 
safely count six heart tricks, five diamonds, 
and three clubs, or one trick more than the 
grand slam. The leader, a little mournfully, 
admitted the disheartening truth of the claim 
and Foster began to score up 292 points — 
^6 below the line and 236 above for five 
honors In one hand, grand slam, chicane, and 
rubber. After gazing thoughtfully at Fos- 
ter's cards, third hand — Mr. Gilhooly — 
protested that he could not quite see a grand 
slam in the hand and politely begged Foster 
to follow, in the dummy, to Mr. McDonald's 
192 



TRAGEDIES AND SURPRISES 

lead of clubs. Dummy played the king of 
clubs and Mr. Gilhooly promptly trumped 
it and led one of his jfive diamonds which 
Mr. McDonald trumped quite as promptly. 
The slaughter went on until the leader had 
trumped three diamonds and third hand had 
trumped four clubs. They looked at the six 
top hearts which were left shining brightly 
in dummy and modestly said that they would 
be satisfied to rest from their labors, merely 
scoring the odd trick and — as they were 24, 
on the rubber game — rubber, and permitting 
Foster to score his five honors and chicane. 
Had Mr. Gilhooly, the third hand, held any 
club, it would have actually made a difference 
of 304 points — in Mr. Foster's favor — in 
the score of the rubber. 



/ 



193 



CHAPTER XII 

A TEST HAND USEFUL IN DISCOURAGING 

THE BOASTERS 

There is, I know, a popular fallacy that 
beginners always win at bridge and poker. 
It is, of course, undeniable that wretched 
players often hold better cards than perfect 
players, and that a lucky distribution of the 
hands will sometimes favor them, but to sup- 
pose that the odds are always in favor of 
the beginner would be nothing but the sheer- 
est madness. If a beginner wins at bridge, ^^ 
we are so struck by the phenomenon that we 
fail to remember the hundred or so instances 
in our experience where the beginner has been 
soundly beaten. 

Nothing can be more amusing, for a care- 
ful player, than to watch the antics of a 
beginner at the bridge table. Certain fun- 
damental and universal errors, common to all 
tyros, he is bouhd to commit, of course, but 
194 



A TEST HAND 



he is also certain to exhibit other vagaries, 
purely individutal and personal in their na- 
ture. 

We suppose that ninety percent of the 
bridge players in the world regard a trick 
in trumps as having a greater value than a 
trick in a plain suit. It is astonishing to see 
how carefully most players will play their 
trumps. They must lead them from the 
right side, at the right time, and they must 
be careful about leading a high card, per- 
haps, to coax a higher card from the adver- 
sary who is to play after them. Infinite 
pains over the trump suit, and, nine times 
out of ten, no pains whatever about the plain 
suits. This is only one of the thousand or 
so follies of the poor player. 

Another deep-rooted folly is the way in 
which average players fail to pay any atten- 
tion to the fall of the cards on the first trick 
or two. Along about trick seven, they begin 
to think with a vengeance. One would sup- 
pose that they were intent upon some abstruse 
problem in fluxions or calculus, when, as a 
matter of fact, there could be no doubt what- 
ever as to their next play, if only they had paid 
195 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

a little heed to the cards that were played 
to the first trick or two. 

Here is a very simple example : The leader 
opens the two of clubs, in a heart hand, from 
queen, lo, 7, 2 of clubs. Dummy goes down 
with the king, 6, 4, 3 of clubs, and rushes 
up with the king of clubs, which third hand 
takes with the ace. The dealer plays the 5. 
Now, why has the dealer rushed up with dum- 
my's king, second in hand? Obviously, be- 
cause he, the dealer, has only one club and this 
Is his desperate chance to make a trick in 
the suit, on the assumption that the leader 
may have led away from the ace. A little 
thought, therefore, will show third hand that 
the leader Is left with the queen, 10 and 7, 
and a similar amount of attention should show 
the leader that his partner must and can only 
hold the jack, 9, 8. The dealer, as the two 
was opened, can place the leader and third 
hand with three clubs each, unless the two was 
a singleton lead, in which case the leader has 
no more clubs and, if the leader has no more, 
third hand must have six. Here, owing to 
dummy's play of the king, second in hand, 
the dealer has practically declared that he 
196 



A TEST HAND 



has but one club, and yet how few players 
will take the trouble to make even so simple 
a deduction as this. Almost every play In 
bridge Is charged with meaning. Everything 
Is an Inference, while some of the Inferences 
are moral certainties. 

There are, roughly speaking, five kinds of 
bridge players. Let us classify them, as fol- 
lows: (i) Idiots; (2) butchers; (3) tinkers; 
(4) artists; (5) necromancers. 

In many hands two Idiots, playing together, 
will make as many tricks as two necroman- 
cers can make. In one hand in every thou- 
sand they will make more, but in, say, ninety 
out of a hundred, they will make anywhere 
from one to seven less. These subtle differ- 
ences between players are interesting; let us 
purs.ue them farther. For purposes of com- 
parison we shall arrange a hand that can be 
played in a variety of ways. A hand some- 
thing like it was arranged, years ago, by R. 
F. Foster. I have forgotten his exact hand, 
but the following resembles It, and will very 
well answer our purpose. Let me sec any 
two people attack this hand and I shall very 
soon tell you to what class of players they be- 
197 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 



long. Let me urge my readers to deal out 
the hands, before reading the rest of this 
chapter, and ask two of their friends to carry 
out a sham battle with them, as it were. Do 
not let them see all the cards, of course, but 
simply ask them to play their hands, against 
the dealer and dummy, as carefully as they 
can. The result in tricks will place them in 
the class to which they rightly belong. The 
cards are distributed as follows: 

Z. Dealer: Ace, queen, jack, 9, 2 hearts; 
8, 7 clubs; 9, 7 diamonds; 10, 9, 8, 5 spades. 

A. Leader (to the left of the dealer) : 
10, 8, 3 hearts; 3 clubs; ace, king, 10, 8, 5 
diamonds; queen, 7, 6, 4 spades. 

Y. Dummy: King, 4 hearts; jack, 10, 9, 2 
clubs; queen, jack, 6, 4, 2 diamonds; ace, 2 
spades. 

B. Third hand (to the right of dealer) : 
7, 6, 5 hearts; ace, king, queen, 6, 5, 4 clubs; 
3 diamonds; king, jack, 3 spades. 

The score is one game all, 24 all. Dealer 
declares hearts. How should the leader and 
his partner play their hands in a regular rub- 
ber, that is to say, without exposing any cards 
other than dummy's ? 

198 



A TEST HAND 



Let us see how the hand would be played 
by each of our Imaginary classes of players. 
To begin with the Idiots, of whom there are 
about ten per cent among bridge players. 

The leader, A., will lead his singleton 3 of 
clubs, for there is — to an Idiot — nothing so 
beautiful In all the world as a singleton, and 
third hand will take the trick with his ace — 
Instead of with his queen — In order to de- 
ceive the dealer. He will then play the king 
of clubs, on which A. will discard the 4 of 
spades. B. now plays the queen of clubs, 
which Z. trumps with the jack of hearts. Z. 
takes three rounds of trumps and leads the 9 
of diamonds, which A. takes with the ace 
of diamonds. After this. A., of course, leads 
the king of diamonds, and Y. and Z. natur- 
ally make the rest of the tricks, Y. getting In 
with the ace of spades and Z. discarding his 
losing spades on Y.'s two good diamonds and 
one good club. In other words, the idiots 
have lost three by cards. 

The butchers, of whom there are about 

thirty per cent, will know a little too much 

to open a hand with a singleton when they 

hold an ace, king, suit, so that A. will open 

199 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 



the hand with the king and ace of diamonds 
and then switch to his singleton club. B. 
will make the king and queen of clubs and 
then will begin to think. Why should he 
now play his ace of clubs and " set up " the 
jack in the dummy? After mature delibera- 
tion, he will lead a low club, which Z. ruffs 
with the jack of hearts, A. discarding his sec- 
ond spade, having already discarded one on 
the queen of clubs. Z. plays over to his 
king of hearts, takes out three rounds of 
trumps, goes back to the ace of spades, and 
plays the jack and queen of diamonds, on 
which Z. discards two losing spades. Z. now 
ruffs the jack of clubs and surrenders a spade 
trick. In other words, the butchers have 
done a little thinking and have been rewarded 
with one more trick than the Idiots. The 
butchers have lost two by cards. 

Next come the two tinkers, of whom there 
are, among bridge players, about forty-five 
per cent. A. opens the king of diamonds. 
When he sees the three fall from his partner's 
hand he begins to think. B. cannot be play- 
ing " down and out " — in other words, echo- 
200 



A TEST HAND 



ing — as the two of diamonds is in the 
dummy. B. evidently has no more diamonds, 
and A., therefore, plays his lowest card in 
the suit, so as not to lose command of it. Y. 
plays the 4 and B. trumps. In like manner 
B. will play the king of clubs, and, when he 
sees his partner's 3, will also pause to rumin- 
ate. He will then play a low club, so as not 
to risk losing command of the suit. A. will 
trump and return the 8 of diamonds. Y. 
will play the 6 and B. will trump, only to be 
overtrumped by Z. Z. will now play the ace 
of hearts, and follow It with a low heart, 
which he will take with the king In dummy, 
drawing all the trumps except two in Z.'s 
hand. Dummy will now play the queen of 
diamonds. Z. will discard a spade, and A. 
will take the trick with the ace of diamonds. 
Whatever A. now plays, the dummy can get 
in and, on the good jack of diamonds, Z. can 
discard a losing spade. Y. will also make 
the ace of spades and Z. will make his two 
trumps. Z. must, however, lose one trick 
In spades or clubs. In other words, the 
tinkers have thought a little harder than 
201 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 



the butchers, and have only lost the odd 
trick, or one trick less than the butchers and 
two tricks less than the idiots. 

Let us now see what two artists would do 
with the hand. (We may say that there are 
only about fourteen and nine-tenths per cent 
of these highly favored beings in the world.) 

A. opens the king of diamonds. Directly 
he sees B.'s 3, he places the whole suit. Here 
he pauses and thinks, only, instead of half 
thinking, like the tinker, he gets right down 
to the job and thinks hard. After mature 
deliberation, he plays the 10 of diamonds, 
forcing Y. to cover with the jack and allow- 
ing B. to trump. B. now leads the queen of 
clubs, followed by a low club, which A. ruffs. 
A. now plays the 5 of diamonds. This is a 
very pretty play. The 8, at first sight, looks 
like the better play, but Y. might not cover 
with the queen, but choose, rather, to play 
the 4, in which case dummy would be left 
with the queen and 6, and the leader would 
be left with the ace and 5, so that dummy, 
in order to clean up a trick in diamonds, 
would only have to exhaust trumps with two 
leads of them — taking the second trick with 
202 



A TEST HAND 



the king — lead the 6 of diamonds and dis- 
card a spade in Z.'s hand. By doing this, 
the queen of diamonds would become good in 
dummy, and Z. could, later on, surely dis- 
card a spade on it. In other words, A. plans 
to keep a tenace over Y.'s diamonds, no mat- 
ter how Y. plays. 

On A.'s 5 of diamonds, Y. plays the 4. 
B. trumps and Z. overtrumps. Y. and Z. 
may now wriggle and squirm as they please, 
they cannot possibly make another trick in 
clubs or diamonds. If they take out the 
trumps and try to do so, A. and B. must in- 
fallibly win the odd, or one trick more than 
was taken by the tinkers. Just here, how- 
ever, it may be pointed out that if Z. Is an ex- 
pert, he will, at this point, suddenly change 
his tactics and play for a ruff in the spade 
suit with one of dummy's trumps. If he is 
clever enough to do this and leads at once 
tw ) rounds of spades, he can still make the 
odd trick against the artists, so that it is ap- 
parently impossible for any two players, hold- 
ing the hands of A. and B., to win the odd 
trick, the game and the rubber. 

Let us see what two necromancers would 
203 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

do with this particular distribution of cards. 
(Parenthetically, we may add that of this 
type of player there are precisely one-tenth of 
one per cent in the entire bridge-playing 
world. ) 

Our imaginary necromancers would play 
the first four tricks just as the artists did. 
At this point A. is in the lead, having ruffed 
a low club. He is now in a position to do a 
little thinking. Z, must have had five hearts 
or more, as, with less than five and so little 
strength in the side suits, he would not have 
gone hearts. If he has six hearts to the ace, 
he must, with the ace of spades, go game. 
With any seven hearts he must likewise go 
game. Neither is there any hope for A. if 
Z. has five hearts to the ace, and the king of 
'spades. In fact, Z. looks like a certain win- 
ner if he has the king or knave of spades. 
He has no more diamonds. He cannot have 
any more clubs, or B. would have gone on 
with the king of clubs, which, with the ace, 
is marked in his hand. A. can begin to count 
B.'s hand. He must have four more clubs 
and five other unknown cards, of which only 
two can, with any degree of probability, be 
204 



A TEST HAND 



trumps. A.'s only chance of winning the 
game Is to find his partner, B., with either 
the ace of trumps or the king of spades. If 
Z. has the king of spades, the game Is gone. 
If he hasn't It, he must be prevented from 
ruffing his low spades In dummy. Knowing 
that he and his partner control the diamonds 
and clubs, A. leads a trump, which Is taken 
In the dealer's hand. The dealer can now 
see that the jig Is up unless he can ruff a 
spade in the dummy. He therefore leads a 
low spade over to the ace and goes on with 
the 2 of spades, at which point B. can do a 
little thinking on his own account. His part- 
ner Is obviously anxious to have the trumps 
knocked together. If Z. has the queen and 
another spade, or the queen and two spades, 
the queen is bound to make, so B. rushes up 
with the king and leads his last trump, which 
dummy takes with the king. The trumps are 
now all out, except three In Z.'s hand. Z. 
can now trump one of Y.'s clubs or diamonds. 
Neither play will help him. Let us sup- 
pose that he trumps a club. He must now 
lead a spade — either the 9 or the 10 — and 
again A. must stop and think. He can now 
205 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

count B.'s hand. He must have four clubs 
and a card that Is almost certainly a spade, 
though it might, by a miracle, be a heart. If 
it is a heart A. is safe in passing the trick 
for him to ruff. If it is a spade it may be 
the jack. If It is the jack the game is won. 
If it is not the jack the game Is Inevitably 
lost, so A. passes the trick. When B. takes 
the trick with the jack of spades he has only 
to lead his ace of clubs, and Z. must, no mat- 
ter how he plays, surrender a spade trick, the 
game and the rubber. 

This Is the way that two necromancers dis- 
sect and analyze every hand that they pick 
up. The above is a hand In which two good 
players, simply by drawing careful Inferences, 
must Inevitably win the odd trick, and yet I 
venture to say that not two players in a thou- 
sand will, In the ordinary course of play, play 
A.'s and B.'s hands correctly unless all the 
cards are exposed. 



206 



CHAPTER XIII 

GIRLS 

My friend, X., of Philadelphia, is one of 
the soundest bridge-players that it has ever 
been my good fortune to meet. He is, at 
times, a little critical and finicky, but his 
bridge is so careful and so sane that he has 
become an acknowledged authority on the 
game. He tells the following story, at his 
own expense, and, as it illustrates amusingly 
the risk of playing cards with a lady, just be- 
cause you happen to admire her coloring, her 
hair or her eyes, I venture to repeat it with 
all of its author's verbal trimmings and elab- 
orations. 

" It was," he said, " at the Brighton Ho- 
tel at Atlantic City, where I had gone for a 
little rest and change of air. In the cheerful 
dining-hall there sat, at an adjoining table, a 
somewhat forbidding elderly lady, accom- 
panied by quite the prettiest girl I had ever 
207 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

seen. She was filmy and feathery and full 
of youth and laughter. 

" I must confess that, old as I was, and, 
as yet an entire stranger to her, I felt myself 
sinking in a pleasant quicksand of admira- 
tion. I soon became an absolute victim to 
her infectious laughter and her challenging 
eyes. 

" As good luck would have It there ar- 
rived at the hotel, the night before I was to 
leave It, a youth whom I recognized as a fel- 
low member of a Philadelphia club. To my 
no small surprise it developed that he was 
engaged to the bright and beautiful being 
who had so captivated my aged fancy. An 
Introduction was effected and the next after- 
noon, after tea, Berty, the lucky young hero, 
Informed me that the ' toothless dragon,' 
meaning his future mother-in-law, wanted to 
scare up a game of bridge. I smihngly as- 
sented and was, of course, delighted to cut 
the blonde young ' angel ' for a partner, 
mama falling to the lot of Berty; a windfall 
which he accepted, I thought, with rather bad 
grace. 

" The angel leaned across the green table, 
208 



GIRLS 



looked me tragically in the eyes, and besought 
me to instruct her a little in the finer points 
of the game, as she was fearfully rusty. ' Al- 
though,' she added, ' I have naturally played 
cards, at home, for years.' 

" I advised her carefully to watch the 
dummy and always to lead through the strong 
hand, up to the weak. 

*' After the first hand, which she butchered 
with unparalleled lightness, laughter and 
grace, I said, very mildly: 

" ' Oh, partner, I wanted so to have you 
give me a trump.' 

" Angel — pouting : ' How could you be so 
selfish? You had loads of them and I had 
only one.' 

" The second hand after this she opened 
with the king and ace of clubs, to which I 
' echoed,' that is, played high to low, in order 
to encourage her to risk another lead of clubs, 
as I could ruff them on the third round. But, 
alas ! she switched to the two of trumps — re- 
membering, I suppose, my chagrin at her 
failure to lead them two hands before — and 
we never made another trick, losing five by 
cards in diamonds and the game. 
209 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

" I ventured another mild protest. 

" 'My dear young lady, I asked you to 
lead another club. I fairly screamed for it.' 

" Angel — in some perplexity and with just 
a trace of temper : * Well, you couldn't have 
screamed very loud or I would certainly have 
heard you.' 

" Hero and Angel here exchanged a signifi- 
cant glance, as indeed they did after the play 
of nearly every card. A few minutes later it 
was Angel's lead at no trumps. She opened 
the three of diamonds from the king, queen, 
jack, 9, 6, 3, 2. Dummy had no diamonds. 
I held four to the eight, and the dealer took 
the first trick with the ten, leaving the ace 
bare in his hand. I applied the rule of eleven 
and convinced myself that the dealer had a 
good deal of strength in the diamond suit. 
I very soon secured the lead and, after ma- 
ture reflection, I abandoned the apparently 
hopeless diamonds. Had I gone on with 
them we would have made the odd trick in- 
stead of losing three by cards. After the 
massacre was over, I asked her, very po- 
litely : 

2IO 



GIRLS 



" ' When you are at home you play the 
penultimate, I presume ? ' 

"Angel — embarrassed and a little 
ashamed: "No, I don't. Susy plays the 
violin, but I can't play anything — except the 
gramaphone.' 

" After this, Angel heaped fresh indignities 
and atrocities upon me at every turn. 

" I felt that my cup of bitterness was about 
to run over. At the last hand of the rub- 
ber it was Hero's turn to deal. He left the 
make to the grim, maternal dragon, who de- 
clared hearts with a five-card heart suit to 
the ace, queen; a four-card club suit to the 
king, jack; a singleton spade, and three low 
diamonds. 

" I was the leader and Angel was playing 
third hand. I opened a spade and managed 
to put her in twice, once with her ace of 
spades and once with the ace of clubs, hoping, 
all in vain, that she might lead up to the 
weak diamond suit in dummy, as I held the 
ace, queen, ten of it, and did not like to open 
the suit myself. Her first lead was — I 
might have known it — a heart (trumps) up 

211 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

to the ace, queen, in dummy. Her second 
was a little better — a club, up to the king, 
jack. After the hand I looked the blonde 
young murderess In the eye and asked her 
how she had managed to think of these leads. 

" ' Why,' she said, ' could I have done any 
better? ' 

" I had, a short time before, wanted to 
shake, spank or strangle her, but her gaze 
of childish wonder, her trusting, serious eye, 
disarmed me utterly, and my wrath seemed 
to fold up Its tents ' like the Arabs and si- 
lently steal away.' 

" ' Oh, well,' I said, ' perhaps If you had 
remembered my instructions and led through 
the strong hand and up to the weak, It might 
have helped us a bit.' 

" Angel — great astonishment and a look 
of triumph suffusing her heavenly face : 
' Well, of all things ! Why ! That's exactly 
what I did do. I did it twice. I knew that 
Berty was the strong player and you were 
the weak.' 

" What could I do? What could anybody 
do? 

" I finally decided that a little dash of 

212 



GIRLS 



humor might do her more good than all the 
scolding in the world, and risked the follow- 
ing rather clumsy shaft : 

" ' Well, Miss A., I can only congratulate 
myself on two things. First, that I have had 
the pleasure of meeting you, and second, that 
you are not to be the engineer on our train 
to-night.' (We were all going to Philadel- 
phia that evening.) 

" Angel — very fond of conundrums, jig- 
saw puzzles, and cipher letters : 

" ' Why! What do you mean? ' 

" ' Because,' I said, ' I am afraid that you 
could not see a signal if It were an inch away 
from your nose.' 

" Angel — all ready with a ' squelcher ' : 
' Now that's where you fool yourself. Why ! 
While you were carrying on so ridiculously 
about that wretched game, Berty signaled me 
to stop playing bridge and come out on the 
beach with him and I saw and understood 
the signal in a flash.' Tableau ! 

Here is another tale that is certainly calcu- 
lated to melt a heart of stone : 

Miss Peggy H. is possessed of everything 
that makes life endurable to women in New 
213 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

York society — except money. She has 
great beauty, a light heart, excellent family, 
a good position, youth, abounding popularity, 
a thin figure, and a fervid love of bridge 
whist. Added to all this she is, in her way, 
something of a wit. Being an exceedingly 
clever girl — and old and wise for her years 
— she soon came to the conclusion that life 
in New York without money was but a hollow 
mockery at best. Accordingly, and with a 
heartrending sigh, she decided to accept the 
oft-repeated and oft-repulsed attentions of 
Sigismund, the richest among her thousand 
and one admirers. 

Now this bachelor was famous alike for 
the meanness of his soul and the magnificence 
of his fortune. His millions, they used to 
say, were often counted, but never spent. On 
such a golden tide of ducats Peggy intended 
to float proudly on to opera boxes, tiaras and 
radiant happiness. She knew that Sigismund 
detested spending money and that his un- 
willingness to " give over " was proverbial, 
but she felt that, once she could get him prop- 
erly haltered, hitched, and checked, she could 
214 



GIRLS 



coax and wheedle him into a semblance, at 
least, of prodigality and display, 

" Just you wait until after the ceremony," 
she used to say smilingly to her doting mama. 

A ball at Mrs. L.'s on the evening follow- 
ing her grim determination; a more or less 
inaccessible conservatory; the music of " L« 
Faiite des Roses " ; a glass of very dry cham- 
pagne, and a seraphic smile on the face of in- 
nocent ( ?) little Peggy was all that was 
needed to make the unsuspecting Sigismund 
propose again and, this time, slip his neck into 
Peggy's silken noose for the balance of his 
natural life. 

The engagement was to be announced at 
a dinner given by the bride's mother. This 
feast proved a great success. Toasts were 
drunk, speeches were made, and the good 
news whispered by mamma, over the tele- 
phone, to the society editor of a three-cent 
morning paper. The groom-to-be hinted 
broadly to his fiancee that he had purchased 
the engagement ring and brought it with him 
to the dinner. ( Suppressed excitement on the 
part of little Peggy ! ) 

215 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

After the cigars the servants brought in the 
cards for bridge and, curiously enough, in the 
cutting, it fell to Peggy's lot to play partners 
with her future lord and master against an 
elderly married couple — friends of Peggy's 
mamma. Two or three ladies, who had not 
cared to play, drew up their chairs to watch 
the progress of this rubber. 

As soon as it was Peggy's dummy she 
promptly commenced chatting with the on- 
lookers, at which annoying evidence of her 
lightness of nature, stern Sigismund favored 
her with a solemn rebuke. 

" There! " he said. " If you want some- 
thing to do while I am playing this hand, look 
at that." And he handed her, with an air 
of great triumph, a red leather jewel box. 
Peggy's fingers were a little " trembly " as 
she opened the box and saw the engagement 
ring — a band of dull gold in which she 
beheld two diminutive and lacklustre moon- 
stones ! 

She bit her lips. A rage of mortification 

and despair was sweeping over her, but she 

kept herself in check, calmly passed the box 

to the onlookers, gazed sweetly and grate- 

216 



GIRLS 



fully at Sigismund, and said, with a sublime 
affectation of interest in the hand : 

" Having no diamonds, partner? " 

" Diamonds," said he, looking up from the 
cards in astonishment, " what are you talking 
about? Spades were led, weren't they? " 

Alas ! Poor Peggy's barbed and poisoned 
arrow had " gone wide." 

At the expense of the girls, I may, per- 
haps, be permitted to narrate one more anec- 
dote — this time a very short one. It is 
comparatively pointless, but it has, somehow, 
always amused me. 

On the Sunset Limited, toward dusk, a party 
of Southerners were playing bridge while the 
train dashed on its mild way northward. 
One of the players was a very young and de- 
liberate lady who took an eternity to make 
up her mind to play a card. During one of 
these interminable pauses a gentleman, who 
had only that day been presented to the hu- 
man tortoise, leaned over the table, and in a 
very solicitous tone Inquired: 

" Excuse me. Miss S., but do you, as a rule, 
sleep with your feet or your head toward the 



engine ? 



217 



CHAPTER XIV 

SUCCESS WITH BAD PARTNERS 

I HAVE lately discovered an easy way to 
xnake money at bridge. As my readers have 
been so good as to listen to so many of my 
old stories I am going to take them all into 
my confidence. With the aid of the knowl- 
edge that I am about to impart to them, they 
ought to make twenty per cent more money 
at the game than they have ever made be- 
fore. 

I have been at work, for weeks, preparing a 
monumental guide for playing bridge with 
bad partners. Everybody has been writing 
books about how to play with good partners, 
but no one has seen that — as there aren't any 
good partners in the world, all partners being 
more or less bad — what we really want is 
a work on how to understand bad partners 
and not on how to understand good bridge. 

Instead of avoiding, as I have in the past, 
218 



SUCCESS WITH BAD PARTNERS 

the bad players at the club — hiding behind 
screens in the card-room, and even taking 
sanctuary in the barber shop when I see them 
approaching — I now realize that I shall 
probably be forced to play with them in any 
event and I go bravely forth and shake them 
cordially by the hand. As a consequence of 
this affability on my part and of my special 
and kindly method of play with them, they 
all hope for a chance to play with me. I am 
known among them as the only man who ap- 
preciates " really good play," as they call it, 
and, as a result of this, they play a hundred 
per cent better with me than with any other 
man in the club. 

Let me preface my remarks by admitting, 
frankly, that the scenes In a club card-room 
often beggar description. A card-room Is a 
little like strong drink In that It seems en- 
tirely to change men's natures and tempera- 
ments. It makes the mild men bluster. The 
impetuous men become meek; the polite be- 
come rude; the selfish become generous; the 
cowards become brave; the brilliant men be- 
come drivelling Idiots while the dull-witted 
grow alarmingly astute. But let the door of 
219 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

the card-room close on their exit and — 
presto ! — they instantly become themselves 
again. 

What awful tumults and tortures we have 
witnessed, and shared in, in the card-rooms 
of the world. Were we to behold these 
scenes outside of a club, and not know the 
matter at issue, we should verily believe our- 
selves to be in some insane pavilion for in- 
curables. 

Let us view a typical afternoon scene. 
Clouds of tobacco smoke are everywhere; 
cigar ashes are on everything; spilt tea is in 
every tray; the gentlemen's cravats are all 
awry; money lies on most of the ta- 
bles; the players are wildly gesticulating; 
waiters are bringing in fresh glasses and bot- 
tles, but never removing the " cripples," while 
everywhere we hear a confused hubbub of 
nagging and wrangling, for all the world like 
the chattering of angry magpies in a cage. 

Shall we listen to a few snatches of the 
elevating conversation that these prominent 
bankers and lawyers and business men and 
gentlemen of leisure are indulging in? 
220 



SUCCESS WITH BAD PARTNERS 

*' Why in the deuce didn't you play your 
queen of clubs and save it? " 

" I never had the queen of clubs. What's 
the matter with you? " 

" Then why go on with the suit? Are you 
crazy? " 

" How was I to know that you had all the 
diamonds? Am I a mind-reader? " 

" Couldn't you lead one and find out? " 

" I never had the lead, after you butchered 
the hand by trumping my spade." 

" That's no reason for throwing all your 
cards on the table." 

" Well, if you can't see a signal or a revoke, 
what's the use of your playing at all? " 

" You chuck my money about as if you en- 
joyed it," etc., etc., etc. 

And then, in cutting in at a table, how 
wonderful it is to discover that no living 
mortal can remember how many rubbers have 
been played. It seems to be impossible to 
find four men who can recall the number of 
the rubbers with anything even approaching 
exactitude. Here is an instance. There are 
exactly six men at an evening table of club 

221 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

bridge. Six rubbers have been played, with, 
naturally, four players in each rubber, or a 
total of twenty-four individual rubbers. This 
is an average of four rubbers for each player. 
Somebody stops and you cut in at the table. 
Who is to go out ? 

Curiously enough, nobody has played more 
than three rubbers. One of the men is sure 
that he has only played two. Everybody is 
in doubt ; a cloud of perplexity envelops them 
all. How singular this is ! They remember 
perfectly well how many directors' meetings 
they have attended that day; how many 
courses they had for their dinner, and what 
their engagements are for to-morrow, but 
they'll be blessed if they can remember 
whether they have played two rubbers or three 
or four or nine or none at all. 

The forthcoming work, on which I have 
been so busily engaged and of which I have 
already spoken, is to be entitled: 

'' Rules for Playing Bridge Whist with 
Beginners, Blind Cripples, Congenital Idiots, 
Somnambulists, Ladies of Fashion, Country 
Parsons, Debutantes, Trained Seals, " Natural 
Card Geniuses,'^ Children Under Five, and 

222 



SUCCESS WITH BAD PARTNERS 

Pupils in Bridge Correspondence Schools." 

The first dozen or so rules will, I hope, 
convey to my readers some idea of the great 
importance of the treatise. 

Rule I. Remember that bad partners are 
— like South American orchids — endless 
in their variety. New species are constantly 
being discovered. When you think that you 
have plumbed the lowest depths you will sud- 
denly run foul of a man who is in a little 
class of degradation all by himself. Remem- 
ber, too, that you are chained to a bad part- 
ner as, shall we say, a clever man is often 
chained to a boring wife. Scolding and nag- 
ging are not going to rid you (or him) of 
the incubus. As this is an established truth, 
ahvays take pains to flatter your partner 
grossly as he stumbles along from one morass 
to another. The deeper he sinks into the 
rank and miasmatic quagmire the coarser 
must be your flattery. 

Rule 2. Remember that he is more than 
likely to lose track of the cards, not singly, 
but in rounds of four. 

Rule 3. Having two cards in a suit, one of 
them an honor, he always begins to signal 
223 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

with the honor, particularly if he has no 
trump with which to ruff the suit on the third 
round. 

Rule 4. He is very fond of playing an in- 
comprehensible card, that loses two or three 
tricks, and then looking inutterably wise and 
saying: "I was playing for a big thing, 
partner." 

Rule 5. The four things that give him the 
keenest and most unalloyed pleasure in bridge 
are as follows: 

(a) Beginning a hand, on his own deal, 
by ruffing a lot of losing cards in his weak 
hand, with the trumps in his strong, (b) 
Leading a suit of which both his adversaries 
are void, thereby enabling the weaker of the 
two hands to ruff and the stronger to throw 
away a losing card, (c) Leading a queen up 
to an ace, without the jack in either hand. 
This probably pleases and gratifies him as 
much as anything in the game, (d) Playing 
the queen, third hand — from ace, queen, and 
one small card — on his partner's original 
lead of the suit, when the king is seen not to 
be in the dummy. (This play he invariably 
calls a " finesse.") 

224 



SUCCESS WITH BAD PARTNERS 

Rule 6. Remember that he never leads 
trumps. If he should start to lead them show 
no surprise or gratification, as the lead Is 
merely an Inadvertence. He Is certain to 
think better of It and stop the trump lead at 
the very next trick, as one round of trumps 
Invariably satiates him. Remember the say- 
ing that there are thousands of men walking 
to dinner parties who would be riding to them 
In cabs If they knew enough to lead trumps 
at bridge. If he refuses to ruff the losing 
cards of one of your suits do not jump to the 
conclusion that he has no trumps ; on the con- 
trary, he probably has an honor or two, but 
these honors look too compelllngly beautiful 
for him to part with. 

Rule 7. When he opens the three of a suit 
you may be sure that It Is from some com- 
bination like the four and the three alone, or 
else from the king, queen, jack, ten, three, 
two. When playing against the dealer, If he 
should lead a king, you may conclude definite- 
ly that he has not the ace. In the same way, 
when he takes a trick with the queen he 
cannot have the king. 

Rule 8. Let him take up the tricks. It 
225 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 



always gives him a little thrill of infantile de- 
light. 

Rule 9. Play as confusedly as you can or 
else he may find something in your play to 
base conclusions on — always a dangerous 
thing. When the butchery is over, smile at 
him, wink one eye knowingly, and say, with a 
little chuckle : 

" Partner, I think we made the most of that 
hand, don't you? " 

Rule 10. Remember that you are always 
playing against three players — your two ad- 
versaries and your partner. 

Rule II. Never expect your partner to re- 
member any card lower than a queen. He 
is not an adding machine. 

Rule 12. Always return his suit at the very 
first opportunity in a declared trump, or he 
will fret and squirm himself into an alarming 
condition of nerves. He must have a reason 
for leading that suit and it will go hard with 
you if you don't return it. Never mind what 
is in your hand or in the dummy. Never, 
at no trumps, return your best card of his suit, 
or he will think you have no more, overtake 
your card, and lead another suit. 
226 



SUCCESS WITH BAD PARTNERS 

Rule 13. As he will never return your lead 
at no trumps it is often wiser to open a weak 
suit in the hope that, when he gains the lead, 
he will switch to that suit in which you are 
really strong. In the same way, he will be 
certain to notice none of your discards save the 
last. Try to arrange your discards in such a 
manner that your last shall give him the in- 
formation that, with another partner, you 
would have conveyed by your first. 

Rule 14. Never explain or point out. You 
will only confuse him and give yourself a 
headache in the bargain. Simply continue to 
smile blandly and ecstatically, as if you were 
a cat being stroked under the chin. 

Rule 15. Remember that he particularly 
enjoys making what he calls a " f at " trick, 
that is, a trick with two or three court cards 
in it. This sort of a trick always stimulates 
and excites him. It also goes to his head to 
make a trick in the trump suit at the very end 
of a hand. He will invariably save his 
trumps until the bitter end with this un- 
holy surprise in view. 

There have lately appeared in the dailies 
and comic papers a great many bridge satires 
227 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

in verse apropos of the subject of good or bad 
partners at bridge, but I think that I am quot- 
ing the best bridge poem that has recently ap- 
peared when I offer to my readers the follow- 
ing anonymous gem clipped from the pages of 
a metropolitan daily. It is, of course, an imi- 
tation of Wordsworth's well-known poem, 
" The Character of the Happy Warrior," 
which begins : 

" Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he 
That every man in arms should wish to 
be?" 

THE PERFECT BRIDGE PLAYER 

Who Is the perfect bridge player? Who is he 
Whose partner ev'ry man would wish to be? 
He who, at whist once expert, now when brought 
Amongst the keener joys oi bridge, hath wrought 
Subtle improvement in his former thought; 
Who, quite unfettered by his ancient ways, 
Adapts himself to circumstance and plays 
As sense directs, though with a due regard 
To what convention says on the discard. 
The lead and declaration, quick to learn. 
What knowledge can perform and yet discern 
Occasions when adherence to a rule. 
In theory right, in practice marks the fool ; 
228 



SUCCESS WITH BAD PARTNERS 

Who, doomed to play in partnership with men 
Prone to declare on five hearts to the ten 
Without support, dissembling all his pain 
Turns the necessity to glorious gain, 
And, come what will, is equal to the need. 
Making his partner's wildest calls succeed; 
Is placable and slow to take offense, 
Mild to the rash and gentle to the dense. 
Eager to praise, yet disinclined to chide. 
Most smiling when he's most dissatisfied; 
Is not dejected when his cards are bad. 
Nor, when they're good, exuberantly glad; 
Who, with a toward or untoward lot, 
Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not. 
Still from his hands gets all that can be got. 
Plays to the score and judges from its state 
When to be bold or when to hesitate. 
And of two declarations makes that one 
Whereby the game can be most surely won ; 
Who takes in calling and in doubling too, 
Just the same time to say what he will do. 
And never by an overlong delay 
Hints what might influence the partner's play; 
Who finally, though scrupulously fair. 
Loses no chance of scoring, and takes care, 
While he observes the rigor of the game. 
That those who play with him should do the same. 
This is the perfect bridge player. This is he 
Whose partner ev'ry man would wish to be. 
229 



CHAPTER XV 

BRIDGE IN ENGLAND 

A GREAT friend of Lord Brougham's, in 
the early days of bridge in England, and one 
against whom he played many rubbers, was 
Lord Yarborough, whose ill luck was pro- 
verbial throughout England. He frequently 
declared that his cards were the most execra- 
ble in the world and that his usual luck was to 
find a nine the highest card In his hand. As 
a consequence of this a hand with nothing 
over a nine gradually became known in Eng- 
land as a " Yarborough." The expression 
became more general and It is to-day the uni- 
versal term applied to a hand without hon- 
ors. Lord Yarborough was always willing to 
bet a thousand pounds to one that. In any 
given hand, dealt in the ordinary way, there 
would be at least one card higher than a nine 
spot. As a matter of fact, the odds are nearly 
230 



BRIDGE IN ENGLAND 

two thousand to one that a hand so dealt will 
contain one or more honors. 

I heard of one rubber, at least, in which 
Lord Yarborough's ill luck forsook him. The 
unlucky lord was playing with his wife and 
two other ladies. During the course of the 
rubber Lord Yarborough held the most enor- 
mous cards. Lady Yarborough, who was 
playing against her husband, took out her 
purse at the end of the rubber, and, with a sad 
and wistful smile, declared to the ladies that, 
in her opinion, a void hand at bridge could, 
with much more point, be called a " Lady 
Yarborough." In the course of this rubber 
Lord Yarborough held one hundred aces 
twice and four honors In diamonds once. 

Another friend of Lord Brougham's at that 
time — I will call him Mr. Cay — was, and 
still Is, a most picturesque and lovable figure. 
His delightful manners at the card-table are 
proverbial throughout England and his skill 
as a player Is well known. His father was 
the best known player of old-fashioned whist 
In all England, with the possible exception of 
" Cavendish." He Is often pointed out in 
231 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

London as the one man who never criticizes 
the play of a hand, but always in some tactful 
way tries to justify the glaring and incredible 
blunders of his partner. 

The writer was once walking home with 
him after an almost all-night session, and 
could not forbear complimenting him upon 
his suavity and self-restraint under very taxing 
conditions. 

" How, how," said I, " can you ever man- 
age to keep your temper ? Your partner fairly 
butchered you to-night and you never com- 
plained. Why do you make a martyr of 
yourself? " 

He turned to me, with the early morning 
sun upon his face, and said: 

" My dear fellow, I make money by it." 

Whether he has made money by it, it would 
be hard to say, but it is certain that he has 
made a host of friends by it. 

The mention of the name " Cavendish " re- 
minds me of an anecdote in connection with 
him which I think is worth relating. At a 
certain card-club In London the members 
take the game rather seriously. It is played 
" for all it is worth," and there is little con- 
232 



BRIDGE IN ENGLAND 

versation indulged in. The cards are care- 
fully examined by the waiters, and the jokers 
removed from the packs before they are 
placed upon the tables. An American gen- 
tleman was put up as an honorary member at 
the club and began his first rubber by chatting 
and laughing in a good-natured way about the 
club in general and about his host — Mr. T. 

— in particular. " Cavendish," who had 
cut against him, silently and solemnly walked 
to the mantel over the fireplace and returned 
with a printed card, which he gravely placed 
before the Yankee. On this card the Ameri- 
can was amazed to read the following legend : 

" Jokers will be removed by the card-room 
waiters." 

Perhaps the most popular bridge club In all 
England is the celebrated Almack's, about 
which club I feel that I must say a word or 
two in passing. 

Almack's used to be, in the olden days, a 
fashionable dancing-club, as Thackeray has 
made us remember. It is now devoted ex- 
clusively to bridge. It is a proprietary club 

— owned by a syndicate of five people and 
managed by a lady and a gentleman who run 

233 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

the club admirably and who are always about 
the club and most obliging about making up 
a rubber. The game is limited to pennies; 
roughly, two cents. 

The standard of play at Almack's Is high. 
The club opens after lunch and remains open 
until two in the morning. Men and women 
are both eligible. There are sometimes six- 
teen tables going at once, and it is not neces- 
sary to know the players to cut in at a table. 

I remember a fine player there, Mr. X., 
who used it a good deal. He was totally 
blind and played with special marked and 
raised cards. When he left the make, third 
hand would declare the trump and (after the 
leader had played) tell him what was in the 
dummy and what card had been led. Then, 
as one of his adversaries played a card they 
would announce it, and without a moment's 
hesitation X. would call the card he wished 
played from dummy. He was a nearly per- 
fect player and rarely chucked a trick. 

" Badsworth," whose books on bridge are 

so popular in England, also played a great 

deal at Almack's and, although his game is 

not as good as it used to be, he is still an 

234 



BRIDGE IN ENGLAND 

intelligent and careful player. Another de- 
lightful member there was Sir John Bonsor, 
formerly Chief Justice of Ceylon. Sir John 
was not only stone-deaf but a very great in- 
valid as well. I remember playing many 
rubbers with him and having him constantly 
remind me about the necessary signals when 
I declared the trumps. If I made it dia- 
monds, I was to point to my ring; hearts, to 
my heart; spades, I was to make a shovel 
of my hands; while, with clubs as trumps, I 
was to shake my fist in his face. Once, dur- 
ing the course of a rubber he misunderstood 
my club signal, and, in order to show him 
his error, I shook my fist at him with some 
little vehemence. 

Later in the day I was told that I had 
been severely criticized — by a lady at a 
near-by table, who did not know Sir John's 
infirmity — for losing my temper with so old 
a man, and for shaking my fist In his face. 
She added that this was a fine example of 
American manners. 

Perhaps, however, the most extraordinary 
and renowned bridge-player In England is 
Mr. B. R. who has come Into a title in the 
235 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 



last year or so. He has no arms and plays 
entirely with his toes. This will, I am cer- 
tain, arouse my readers to a pitch of abso- 
lute disbelief, but I can assure them that he 
is a well-known player and that it is the truth, 
and nothing but the truth. He sorts his 
hand — or should one say " foot " ? — on 
the floor, gathers the cards into suits, and 
flicks them upon the table with unerring dex- 
terity. The cards are, of course, shuffled and 
dealt for him, the tricks gathered, the dummy 
manipulated, and the score marked, but it 
is absolutely true that he sorts his cards and 
plays them entirely with his feet, on which 
he wears very fine silk stockings. 

The late Lord Russell of Killowen, al- 
though one of the most brilliant legal minds 
of his time and a great devotee of the game, 
was a very poor " bridger." He was said 
to be one of the biggest losers in England, 
as he invariably played for very high stakes, 
and was never more than an indifferent 
player. Mr. Asquith, the present prime min- 
ister, although he has played bridge for over 
five years, is not at all a strong player. I 
have, myself, played with him on one or two 
236 



BRIDGE IN ENGLAND 

occasions and have marveled at his lack of 
skill in a game so comparatively simple, when 
It Is everywhere admitted that his is one of 
the clearest and most brilliant minds in Eng- 
land. 

To veer a little from these reminiscences 
I must narrate the harrowing experience which 
befell a charming American lady on a recent 
visit to England. 

She was stopping In a country house In 
Warwickshire and the house-party contained 
enough talent to make up three excellent 
tables at bridge. Mr. and Mrs. N., of 
London, were particularly strong players. 
Their prowess at the game was well known 
and freely spoken of throughout London. 
They had little visible means of support and 
the gossip was that they lived by their bridge. 
This hideous Implication was partly borne out 
by the fact that they showed a marked prefer- 
ence for playing with each other, or, at any 
rate, at the same table. 

As they sat down, the American lady, who 
expected a rather " stiff " game, was sur- 
prised to hear the English woman remark 
that she preferred not to play for money. 
237 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

The fourth at the table was a rich bachelor, 
who said that he, on the contrary, rather 
liked to play for stiff points. The married 
Englishman seemed to be of the same opin- 
ion and my friend sacrificed herself upon the 
altar of good manners and agreed to play 
" for love " against the English lady so that 
the men should always be opponents. 

The game proceeded in regular course and 
my friend soon perceived that the lady from 
London was a surprisingly good player, so 
long as she played with her husband, but that 
when she played against him her game be- 
came distinctly amateurish. Every rubber 
that Mrs. N. played with the bachelor she 
" chucked " most barbarously, but those rub- 
bers in which she had her husband as partner, 
she played with consummate skill. 

The difference in her play was so marked 
that the bachelor, who was by this time in 
a fairly deep hole, financially, remarked that 
he thought he had had enough and the game 
broke up in an ominous silence. After the 
bachelor had paid his twenty-one pounds to 
his adversary he turned to my friend and 
remarked, so that the couple could not help 
238 



BRIDGE IN ENGLAND 

but hear him: " Upon my soul, I have never 
been so rooked in all my life." 

This tale prompts me to repeat that where 
the stakes are large, it is always advisable for 
husband and wife to play at different tables, 
and I have noticed that in London, for in- 
stance, where there is a great deal of after- 
dinner bridge, married couples usually prefer 
to spht tables. 

Of all the English clubs, the club stakes 
at White's are, I think, the highest. The 
regular game there is " shillings, and five 
pounds on the rubber." This makes the 
average rubber at White's about seventy-five 
dollars — a fairly high average for club 
bridge. It is fair to say that there is an oc- 
casional game at the Whist Club in New 
York and also at the Racquet Club, in which 
the stakes are higher than at White's. Last 
winter, for two or three months, there was, 
at the Racquet, a table where dollar bridge 
was frequently played. At the Whist Club 
the stakes at one particular table sometimes 
ran to two dollar points but the regular club- 
stakes were, of course, always a great deal 
more moderate. At the St. James', in Lon- 
239 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 



don, there is a sixpenny table and a three- 
penny table. At the Turf there is nearly al- 
ways a shilling game. In the clubs at St. 
Petersburg, Vienna and Paris, the average 
game is about five cents. 

I should say, on the whole, that the Eu- 
ropean club games are a little bit lower, on 
the average, than in the smart New York 
clubs where the regular game is either five 
or ten cents. It is also true that in New 
York, " after-dinner " or " mixed " bridge is 
a little higher than in the society of European 
capitals. This Is very natural. Americans 
are richer than any other people in the world, 
and they can well afford to play for a little 
higher stakes. In England the social game 
is usually very moderate. I have visited sev- 
eral English country houses where, despite 
the fact that the guests were people of de- 
cided means, the game was never more than 
farthings, — or half a cent a point. 

The whole system of gambling in European 
clubs is better than it is on our side of the 
water. In London, Vienna, Paris, etc., one 
plays against the club and never against the 
individual members of that club. The 
240 



BRIDGE IN ENGLAND 

club acts as a clearing-house for all winnings 
and losses. 

For instance : I am playing at a European 
club. I win a rubber of ten dollars, and 
Mr. B. loses It. We decide to stop, so I put 
a white pasteboard card In the special box 
In the card-room for that purpose. This card 
shows that I am owed ten dollars by the club 
and Is Initialed by Mr. B. Mr. B. also de- 
posits a card showing that he owes the club 
ten dollars and his card Is Initialed by me. 
If we play more than one rubber wc merely 
put our net losses or gains on our cards, and 
do not deposit a card for every rubber. At 
the end of the day, the card-room steward 
gathers up the cards and gives them all to 
the card bookkeeper. 

Once a week the card bookkeeper mails 
checks to all the winners and receives checks 
from all the losers. Each player's account Is, 
in this way, balanced. At the end of the year, 
or, indeed, at any time, the players may look 
at their card accounts^on the club books and 
see just what moneys they have received from 
the club or what moneys they have paid It. 

On a certain day of the week — usually 
241 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

Wednesday at twelve o'clock p. m. — all card 
debts for the previous week must be paid to 
the club. If not, the defaulting player is In 
a great deal of disgrace, and may even be 
expelled from the club ; but when such cases 
occur, the club committee, as a rule, give the 
player a chance to explain and make good 
his error of omission. 

In Austria there have actually been sui- 
cides because certain members of a Viennese 
club found themselves unable to settle their 
card debts. 

In this country, on the other hand, we 
do not play against a club but against in- 
dividuals — a very complicated and tedious 
system. I have won money from as many 
as five players in a single day. These play- 
ers, perhaps, had not the cash with them and 
preferred to send me checks. Such a course 
as this enforces me to carry five figures in 
my head; to remember the names of the five 
losers and, finally, to deposit five checks. I 
think that all sensible players arc united in 
hoping that the European system of play will 
be introduced into our American clubs. 
242 



BRIDGE IN ENGLAND 

There is also a difference between English 
tournaments and those on our side of the 
water. In Almack's Club, for instance, which 
is a great center for tournament bridge in 
London, and where such things are weekly- 
occurrences, players who desire to enter a 
tournament pay a guinea for admission. Be- 
sides this, they pay the usual sum for the 
cards and privilege — in Almack's this sum 
is about fifty cents. The winners of the 
tournament divide the prize — which is al- 
ways cash. 

If there are sixteen entrants, as is usually 
the case, the club only keeps the card (or 
privilege) money, and distributes the sixteen 
guineas as follows : The first couple each re- 
ceive seven guineas. The second couple each 
receive back the guinea which they paid on 
entering the tournament. 

In this country when tournaments are given 
at gentlemen's clubs, the course adopted is usu- 
ally as follows: 

Two or more members donate the prizes — 
gold cigarette-cases, match-safes or card- 
cases — for which the players contend. The 
243 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

winning couple each take a first prize, and the 
second couple each take a second, if second 
prizes have been donated. 

There is an exceedingly rich and well known 
American gentleman whose bridge manners 
are, I regret to say, notoriously bad and 
whose disposition is always to quarrel and 
find fault. On his first visit to England, he 
was admitted, as an honorary member, to 
White's Club in London, where, as I have 
already said, the usual club game is exception- 
ally good and exceptionally costly. 

The American, who is a first rate bridge 
player, inquired if it was permissible for hon- 
orary guests to play cards in the card room. 
On learning that there was no rule against 
it he cut in a rubber with three Englishmen. 
The luck was at first against him, but it soon 
turned and he seemed in a fair way to win 
his first rubber. 

The score on the rubber game, was 24 
to 16 in his favor. He dealt and declared 
no trumps, on a very good hand, except that 
it had no protection in the heart suit. The 
leader asked if he might play. Third hand, 
who was very slow in sorting his hand, hes- 
244 



BRIDGE IN ENGLAND 

Itated a good deal but finally said: "Yes." 
The leader thereupon played the ten of hearts. 

As the American thought that the leader 
had taken advantage of his partner's apparent 
hesitation about doubling, he lost his temper 
completely, threw the card which had been 
led, on the floor and said: 

" Gentlemen, I don't know what you call 
this, but / call it mighty like collusion. One 
man hesitates and the other man promptly 
leads a heart. What am I to think or say? " 

The leader looked at him as if he meant 
to make trouble, but third hand. Captain F. 
H., who Is certainly one of the most delight- 
ful bridge-players In England, politely in- 
formed the American that in England a 
doubled no trump called for the top of the 
shortest suit, and not for the highest heart. 
Dummy then laid down the ace, queen, and 
two other hearts, and the American was mor- 
tified to discover that the leader was leading 
from king, jack, t&n and another heart, and 
not from a short heart suit after all. The 
hand was played out and the American scored 
a small slam, as well as the game and the 
rubber. 

245 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

The Englishmen at this point all invented 
some mythical dinner engagements and left 
the club. This was the last rubber which 
the American ever played at White's. His 
little display of temper finally cost him the 
pleasure of bridge In several London clubs, 
as the story was given wide currency among 
English players. 

I see that England has again been stirred 
by a bitter attack on bridge — this time by 
perhaps the best-known church paper In Great 
Britain. The attack is so vehement and 
exaggerated that it ought to be Its own best 
answer, but the defenders of the game are 
rushing to the rescue like the valiant men that 
they are. The article declares that, for a 
large portion of English bridge players, the 
game has long ago ceased to be a pastime, 
and has become a passion; that theft and 
forgery have been the direct result of it; that 
bridge, unlike whist, is a gambling game, that 
no footman or valet can keep his situation 
unless he plays cards for money; that people 
live for bridge, and that " their souls are 
wilting away under this monstrous obsession," 

246 



BRIDGE IN ENGLAND 

and that only good bridge players are asked 
to certain houses. 

" Badsworth," that polished writer on 
bridge, has printed a little rejoinder in which 
he says: 

Bridge players would heartily welcome the co- 
operation of the church — if they could get it — 
to rid bridge of its abuses, and to bring its harmless 
pleasure within reach of all; but they will not be 
pointed at with the finger of scorn as gamblers, and 
have their innocent amusement denounced as a sin 
and a monstrous obsession, from the narrow stand- 
point of prejudice and ignorance, without examin- 
ing the position and credentials of irresponsible 
slanderers, who may perhaps mean well, but who 
certainly act unwisely. 

I hasten to express the hope that the English 
women who take an interest in local matters; who 
know something of the world in which they live, and 
who do not wrap themselves up in selfish isolation, 
will extend the gift of bridge, which has brought 
so much light and happiness into their own lives, to 
those around them. In the country, a lesson in 
bridge now and again, and a little interest taken in 
the village players, would lay a foundation of much 
healthy pleasure, and deal a death blow to the 
nothing-to-do hours which so often lead to drunken- 
ness and crime. 

247 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 



I feel that this point is well taken, and 
I hasten to urge people who are interested 
in the matter to teach the game as quickly 
as possible to all inmates of sanitariums, hos- 
pitals, asylums, alcoholic cures, and in all 
reformatories and prisons where cards and 
card playing are allowed. I also urge prison 
authorities all over America to permit bridge 
playing among their good-conduct prisoners, 
as I believe that it will do more to better 
them and make them behave themselves than 
all the punishments known in our penal in- 
stitutions. Thus far, bridge has been more 
or less confined to the richer classes. I should 
like to see it spread among the poor. 



248 



CHAPTER XVI 

A TANGLE OF YARNS 

I HOPE that my readers will not gasp when 
they see that they are in for another bundle of 
anecdotes and stories! The first of the col- 
lection is a little story which has a rather 
moving touch of pathos in it. 

Mr. R. is one of the thousand and one 
professors of English at Harvard and a 
great reader and book-worm. He p'asses 
most of his time in his library among his 
books and manuscripts. Mrs. R., on the 
contrary, is of the world, worldly, and usu- 
ally on pleasure bent. Her pet amusement 
is her bridge-class, which meets twice a week 
at her house in Cambridge. When the 
twelve ladies that compose it get fairly " go- 
ing," the clamor is simply deafening. Out- 
side of an aviary, or an imperfect phonograph 
record, there is nothing in all the world to 
compare it to. I chanced to be calling on 
249 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

the professor one wintry afternoon, and we 
had adjourned to his study to discuss the 
merits of Robert Louis Stevenson, Paul Ver- 
laine, and two unique Hoyo de Monterey 
cigars. 

We finally opened the study door, and 
were dumbfounded by the roar and clatter 
that greeted us. The professor stood in 
dumb dismay. He then went to one of his 
library shelves and took down a very rare 
copy of Cotton's " Compleat Gamester," and 
turned to a passage which he signaled me to 
read. 

" The game of whist," I read from the 
learned Cotton, " Is so called from the silence 
that is to be observed in the play." 

(I must add, parenthetically, that the 
opinion that " whist " means " silence " has 
the support of the best English etymologists. ) 

There we stood, facing the verbal thunder 
and the vocal artillery, and there, In my 
hand, was poor, deluded Cotton's forgotten 
masterpiece. 

I was finally taken In and presented to 
some of the ladles, and It was then that I 
witnessed what I consider the most remark- 
250 



A TANGLE OF YARNS 

able thing that I have ever seen at bridge. 

One of the ladies had made it hearts, with 
six hearts to the ace, king. Five tricks had 
been played, including two rounds of trumps. 
Three of the five tricks had been taken by 
the adversaries, and two of them — the ace 
and king of hearts — had been taken by the 
dealer. These two tricks in hearts, to which 
everybody had followed, had exhausted all 
the hearts except four small ones in the deal- 
er's hand and the single nine-spot in dummy. 
At this point the dealer was called to the 
telephone, where she remained for two or 
three minutes, leaving her hand, with its re- 
maining eight cards, on the table. During 
her absence the three ladies at the table com- 
menced a heated argument about the Incroy- 
able hats " that those vulgar New York 
women were all wearing." 

When the dealer returned from her chat 
over the wire with her governess, she was 
evidently a little flustered. After some 
rambling remarks about the question of gov- 
ernesses and children in general, she care- 
lessly picked up the two heart-tricks in front 
of her, instead of the eight cards that properly 
251 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

made up her hand. She glanced at them 
agitatedly, and then exposed them to the 
other ladies at the table, with the remark: 

" Oh, well, there's no earthly use in play- 
ing this hand out. I have nothing but 
trumps." 

Her two opponents first satisfied them- 
selves that her statement was true, and then 
sorrowfully threw their cards on the table, 
with a groan about their persistent ill luck, 
and the game then proceeded in the usual 
" confusion of languages." 

Here Is a delicious bridge story that is 
going the rounds, and that I trust may be 
new to my readers. 

A rubber is made up of two ladies — a 
mother and her daughter — and two visitors, 
who happen to be gentlemen. The scene is 
supposed to be Curtis' Hotel on the quaint 
old Main Street of Lenox. The ladies are 
very keen about the result of the game, but 
the gentlemen are a little bored and weary. 
It is sex against sex, and, so far, the fight 
has been fair. The mother has dealt and 
examined her hand very carefully. 

"Oh, dear! Let me see! We are 
252 



A TANGLE OF YARNS 

eighteen, aren't we, and the rubber game? 
Well, if I should happen to leave it to you, 
dear, and you should just happen to make 
it no trumps, and we could make the odd 
trick, we should win the rubber, shouldn't we ? 
Well, I leave it to you, dear." 

" No trumps," said the daughter with 
alarming alacrity. 

" Oh, how lucky that you could make It! " 
said mama. 

" Shall I play? " said the leader. 

" Well, partner," said third hand. "'We 
are six, aren't we? Now, if you should just 
happen to lead a club, and we were just to 
make eight tricks, we should win the rubber, 
shouldn't we? Well, you may play." 

Upon this, the leader opened with a single- 
ton four of clubs. Dummy had three clubs 
to the queen, ten three; and, third hand had 
eight clubs to the ace, king, jack, while the 
miserable dealer had the lone two-spot. 

After making their eight tricks in clubs 
and scoring up the rubber, third hand turned 
to his partner and observed: "Oh, how 
lucky that you just happened to lead me a 
club." 

253 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

The scenic setting of the following story 
is a murder trial in a New York criminal 
court. The yarn runs something as follows : 

Prosecuting Attorney: Are you certain 
that the wealthy prisoner did not visit his 
residence that afternoon? 

Prisoners Lawyer: I am certain of it and 
can prove an alibi for him. 

P. A.: Are you absolutely certain? 

P. L.: Absolutely certain and I can prove 
an alibi for him. 

Judge (interrupting) : Then please pro- 
ceed to do so. 

P. L.: I can produce conclusive evidence 
to show that my client, the prisoner, was fully 
aware that, on the afternoon of the crime, 
his wife was to give a ladies' bridge party — 
for prizes. 

Judge (solemnly) : Not guilty! 

There is a linguistic crime that never fails 
to set my teeth on edge and the authorship 
of which I am trying hard to trace. I allude 
to the detestable phrase, " I bridge it," in- 
stead of " I leave it." Can anybody throw 
any light on the origin of this abomination? 
Apropos of this there is a yarn that is so 
254 



A TANGLE OF YARNS 

ancient that I doubt if it can stand soberly 
on its feet while I lead it out for a last sad 
inspection. I have heard the story in more 
than a half-dozen forms. The following is 
a composite version, and, on the whole, I 
like it better than any of the more familiar 
variations. 

Mr. T., a deaf gentleman, and his wife 
are living, in a modest way, in Nutley, New 
Jersey. They are incurable bridge fiends. 
The unhappy wife is experiencing, with her 
servants, the horrors that residents of New 
Jersey are, as a class, so painfully familiar 
with. In five short weeks, the deaf gentle- 
man has politely escorted to Nutley four Irish 
cooks and three Swedish waitresses. The last 
" incumbent of the pie portfolio," as Bill 
Nye used to call them, is showing unmistaka- 
ble signs of fractiousness, but is still — 
praise be to Allah ! — presiding — somewhat 
gloomily and with an ominous calm, to be 
sure — over the destinies of the little kitchen. 

The T.'s, hearing that Mr. and Mrs. C, 

warm friends of theirs from St. Paul, are 

in New York, politely ask them out for a 

week-end to do battle with the mosquitoes. 

255 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 



During the first evening a grand challenge 
bridge match — East against West — has 
just gathered momentum, when the Westerner 
looks at his hand and then at his partner, 
and says, " I bridge it." Three times the 
deaf host is forced to ask to have this, to him, 
novel remark repeated to him. When the 
full force of the words has finally reached 
him he whispers a stern and frightened re- 
proof to his friend from St. Paul, 

" For Heaven's sake. Bill, don't you dare 
to shout that name again. If you want any- 
thing at all ask me or my wife to get It for 
you. This cook is only holding on by an eye- 
lid and the least bit of rudeness on our part 
is sure to start her grimly on her way." 

A gentleman in Hempstead, Long Island, 
sends me the following story — as usual at 
the expense of the ladies. 

" I was playing bridge in the country with 
my host, his wife and another lady. The 
women, although they were poor players, 
rather fancied their game. My host amused 
himself by winking at me and taking the four 
aces out of the pack. These he slipped into 
his wife's lap. The hand — a club — was 
256 



A TANGLE OF YARNS 

solemnly played; we quitted the tricks and 
scored up the odd. 

" My host then remarked: ' I can't for the 
life of me remember who had the ace of 
spades.' 

"His wife expostulated: 'Oh, Harry, 
please let's have no post-mortems.' 

" At the next deal he again managed to 
slip all the aces in his wife's lap. The hand 
— a doubled spade — was dealt, played and 
scored. 

" This time it was the ace of hearts that 
seemed to bother my host, and he remarked : 
' I really can't recall who had the ace of 
hearts.' 

"At this his wife exclaimed: 'Well, 
Harry ! you seem to have the aces on your 
brain,' to which, with an amused smile, my 
host replied : ' That may be, my dear, but 
you have them on your lap.' " 

They are telling the following yarn in Can- 
ada and " Tyro," the well known Canadian 
writer on bridge, in the Ottawa Evening Jour- 
nal, more or less vouches for the truth of it. 

At a private house in Ottawa, between 
the rubbers, the hostess was remarking how 
^57 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

well Mr. So-and-so played. " Yes," said 
a guest, " but he's very aggravating when he 
hums hymns all through the game." 

" What on earth," said the hostess, " does 
he do that for? " 

*' Oh," replied the visitor jokingly, " that's 
so that his partner can know what to de- 
clare." 

" Dear me," exclaimed the lady. " Now, 
if he had good hearts what would he hum? " 

" ' As pants the hart for cooling streams,' 
of course." 

" Well, well, and suppose he had good 
spades? " 

" In that case," said the visitor, " he chants 
' The grave as little as my bed.' " 

Then a happy thought struck the hostess. 
" Now, tell me," said she, " what can he pos- 
sibly sing when he has a Yarboit)ugh." 

" Simple, very simple," replied the joker. 
" He just tunes up with ' Nothing in my hand 
I bring.' " 

Here is a diverting bridge story, told, I 

believe, by a Mr. F. C. in New York. I 

think that the tale has appeared In print but 

It is too curious and horrible an adventure 

258 



A TANGLE OF YARNS 

not to be included In this budget of bridge 
anecdotes. I shall relate the story in Mr. 
C.'s own words: 

" The other evening I was dining com- 
fortably at a New York club with an invet- 
erate bridge fiend, and we were amusing our- 
selves by comparing notes as to the most 
terrible tragedies which had ever befallen us 
at the bridge-table. I began by narrating to 
him the horrors of an English house-party 
which I had unwillingly ' honored,' and where, 
for three evenings, I had played double 
dummy, for farthing points, with a deaf 
hostess to the accompaniment of a full Hun- 
garian band. I also mentioned a saddening 
and memorable game which I had played, 
very late at night — at a Newport house — 
where the four twos were removed from the 
pack and four jokers inserted in their places, 
these jokers all having a higher value than 
the aces. 

" My dear boy," said my friend, the fiend, 
" your stories are as mild as a night In June. 
Prepare yourself for a tragedy more terri- 
fying than any tale by Edgar Allan Poe! 

" It was," he continued, " at the Hotel 
259 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

Splendide-Royale in Aix-les-Bains. I was 
playing twenty-cent points — one franc — 
which is just double my usual limit. I had 
lost six consecutive rubbers. I had cut, each 
rubber, against a peculiarly malevolent-look"- 
ing Spaniard, who had a reputation at cards 
which was none too savory. There had been 
trouble about him only the day before at 
the Villa des Fleurs, where he had been 
mixed up in a somewhat unpleasant baccarat 
scandal. He was a crafty and sullen bridge- 
player and I had conceived a most cordial 
dislike to him. To make matters worse, he 
had twice doubled my make of hearts and 
had twice scored up the game as a conse- 
quence. I contained my feeling of antipathy 
as best I could and bided my time. 

"Finally — It was hideously late and the 
card-room waiter was snoring in the service- 
closet — my time for revenge arrived. It 
was my deal, and I saw at a glance that I 
had dealt myself an enormous hand. I 
could hardly believe my eyes. I held nine 
spades with the four top honors, the bare 
ace of clubs, the bare ace of hearts and the 
king and queen of diamonds. Here was a 
260 



A TANGLE OF YARNS 

certainty of eleven tricks at no trumps, and 
very possibly, twelve or thirteen. I looked at 
the Spaniard, whose turn it was to lead, and 
smiled exultantly. 

" ' No trumps,' I said, the note of triumph 
quite perceptible in my voice. Quick as a 
flash the Spaniard had doubled — and quick 
as another I had redoubled. 

" When, however, he had jacked It up to 
96 a trick, I hesitated, but of course went at 
him again with 192. ' Ah, ha ! ' I said to my- 
self. ' Mr. Bird of ill-omen, you are my 
prey, my chosen victim for the sacrifice.' 

" The price per trick had soon sailed up 
to 1,536, and I ventured to look at my part- 
ner. He was chalky white about the gills 
and his eyes seemed to stare idiotically into 
space. His agonized expression prompted 
me to say ' Enough.' 

" Suddenly I had a terrible feeling of alarm. 
Had I, perhaps, mistaken the queen of dia- 
monds for the queen of hearts? If so, my 
king of diamonds was bare and the mys- 
terious Spaniard might run off twelve fat 
diamond tricks before I could say ' Jack Rob- 
inson.' With a sinking heart I looked at 
261 



i 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

my hand again — all was well ! The queen 
was surely a diamond. I looked at the olive- 
skinned gentleman from Spain and begged 
him to lead a card. I felt a great joy well- 
ing up within me. Revenge — soo-cet 
r-r-revenge. . 

" At this moment the Spaniard led a card. 
I looked at it nervously. As soon as my 
eyes beheld it my heart seemed to stop beat- 
ing. He had opened the ace of a strange 
green suit; a suit which I had never seen 
before; a suit all covered with mysterious 
figures and symbols. I felt strangely giddy, 
but discarded one of my beautiful spades. 
I looked at my partner who was the picture 
of despair. He said, mechanically and as 
though life had lost all beauty for him, ' Hav- 
ing no hyppogryphs ? ' to which icy inquiry I 
answered in a strange, hissing whisper, ' No 
gryppolyphs.' 

" The Spaniard followed with another 
green card, a king, this time, and again I 
played one of my priceless spades. The 
leader smiled a mahogany smile and pro- 
ceeded to run off his entire suit of thirteen 
green cards. He then scored up a grand 
262 



A TANGLE OF YARNS 

slam, the game, and a rubber of 10,450 
points, or $2,090. I felt my brain reeling, 
and then and there fainted away with my 
head on the card-table. Soon, however, I 
thought I felt the Spaniard tugging at my 
coat-sleeve. My anger at this was beyond 
all bounds. I opened my eyes, prepared to 
strike the crafty foreigner in his wicked face, 
and saw — my servant standing by my bed 
with my breakfast-tray in his hands and my 
bath-robe on his arm." 



263 



CHAPTER XVII 

IN SOCIETY 

There is an amusing story which illus- 
trates the hold that bridge whist sometimes 
gets on its devotees in fashionable society. 

During a recent yacht-race at Newport, 
Colonel J. J. Astor took out a party of friends 
on his steam-yacht, the Nourmahal. In the 
party were the late Commodore Kane and 
some enthusiastic yachtsmen, as well as a few 
feminine bridge lovers. 

These latter promptly sat down in the 
lower cabin, and began challenging the god- 
dess, Fortuna. As the magnificent sloops 
jibed around the first mark, the Commodore 
put his head down one of the hatches and 
shouted; "They are turning — they are 
turning! " 

His remark left the bridge-players quite 
unmoved, and there was, in the vulgar par- 
lance of the day, " nothing doing." Lunch- 
264 



IN SOCIETY 



eon was soon announced^ and immediately 
after this the card-tables were brought out 
for a renewal of the contest. At the finish 
of the yacht-race, which was a close one, the 
Commodore, thinking it a pity that so fine 
a race should altogether escape the ladies, 
again begged them to come above, and added: 
"It's a wonderful finish — you really must 
see it." Again a tense silence from the cabin 
and again the Commodore was in despair. 

The ladies missed the finish, of course, but, 
finally, when the race was over and the gigs, 
full of the guests, were approaching the yacht- 
club dock, some friends on shore called out 
excitedly: "Who won? Who won?" To 
which one of the ladies shouted back: " Oh I 
Alice did, of course! She held every ace 
in the pack." 

There is so much rubbish talked about 
the very high gambling at bridge among 
women in society and the evil effects of it 
that I often wonder where and when all 
these vast sums are won and lost. Accord- 
ing to the Sunday newspapers, society is a 
legalized gambling-hell with no limit to the 
stakes. Everybody Is risking a fortune on 
265 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

the turn of a card. " The Newport leaders " 
are selling their houses; "prominent society 
women" are committing suicide; "wealthy 
clubmen " are cheating and being driven out 
of country houses; and the "smart set" is 
full of wailing and impoverished women, 
who have lost their fortunes at fashionable 
bridge-parties ! 

But this it not all. Drinking, according 
to the supplements, goes with bridge, and 
cigarettes go with drinking. The ladies 
must, therefore, be heavy smokers and drink- 
ers. In short, bridge has ushered in an en- 
tirely new code of morals, and, solely on 
account of it, we have returned to the follies 
and extravagances of the Roman Empire un- 
der Caligula and the dissolute court at Ver- 
sailles under Le Grand Monarque. 

The pulpit has taken up the scent and we 
have been treated to a wonderful series of 
sermons on the evils of card-playing. Doc- 
tor Rainsford, from his pulpit at St. George's 
Church, New York, was the first to expose 
the terrible evil. He drew a lurid picture 
of an impoverished young lady in New York 
who was overjoyed because she had won six 
266 



IN SOCIETY 



hundred dollars at bridge In a single hour. 
Now, this story Is ridiculous on the face of 
It, as, In order to accomplish this marvel, 
the poor young lady In question must have 
played as high as dollar stakes — points 
which a poor young lady would, we think, 
hardly venture to play. 

The good Doctor evidently thought that 
bridge was, like roulette, a game of pyramid 
profits where a stake might be multiplied 
hundreds of times in a minute. Bridge, as 
everybody knows. Is nothing of the sort. It 
Is a game where a stake may be won or lost 
only after the completion of a rubber — say, 
twenty-five minutes; and, unless the stakes 
are Inordinately high — which, In society, 
they are not — such gains as these are abso- 
lutely Impossible. 

The late Doctor Huntington at Grace 
Church followed Doctor Ralnsford's lead, 
only. Instead of observing the old Hoyle rule 
of " second hand low," he drew a still more 
terrifying picture of a wealthy young man 
who was ruined and utterly impoverished by 
bridge. (We cannot help wondering whether 
Doctor Ralnsford's poor young lady was the 
267 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

chosen Instrument of the undoing of Doctor 
Huntington's rich young man!) 

Here the misconception in the Doctor's 
mind was, evidently, that the game resem- 
bled Wall Street. It might suddenly take a 
bad turn, and, if the margin were not suffi- 
cient, the original investment could easily be 
lost ten or twenty times over. This idea is 
also, of course, absurd. 

Now, the plain truth about " society " 
bridge Is that people play for what they can 
afford. Everybody in it respects the man or 
woman who says frankly: "I can only af- 
ford penny points," or five-cent points, or 
whatever the Individual's limit may be. 
Bridge may be a waste of time; it may keep 
people away from more important affairs, but 
to say that a love of playing bridge for money 
connotes anything like a lax moral sense is, of 
course, preposterous. 

As to smoking ! It Is true that very many 
women In New York society smoke cigarettes. 
If they didn't they would be totally unlike the 
women In English society or in the society 
of Spain, Greece, Italy, Russia, Hungary and 
other European countries. 
268 



IN SOCIETY 



As to drinking ! There is practically no 
drinking among the women in the smart so- 
ciety of New York. They may drink a little 
with their meals, but that is all. The rea- 
son for this is, possibly, that it is considered 
decidedly common and vulgar. Fashion has 
more to do with regulating our conduct than 
we like to believe. 

" But," I hear some astute reader remark, 
" if the fashionable, bridge-playing Women of 
New York do not drink, why is there a siphon 
in your frontispiece? " 

Well, there is a reason for that. To be 
truthful, Mr. Fancher, the artist, detests the 
game, as I remarked in my preface, and this 
was his underhanded method of dealing a 
blow at the game's devotees. That is the 
real answer to the question propounded by 
my reader. Mr. Fancher' s answer, however, 
was so disingenuous (when I asked him this 
very question, by letter) that I am almost 
ashamed to print it. He said that ( i ) The 
picture composed better with the siphon than 
without it, as it balanced the dog. (2) It 
is only a siphon of vichy, after all. There is 
no other darker and more profligate bottle be- 
269 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 



side it. (3) The models were not New 
York ladies. They were Parisians (Mr. 
Fancher is in Europe) and not at all like the 
simple, righteous folk who play the game in 
New York. 

All this discussion of virtue and morality is 
seemingly irrelevant, but bridge has been 
blamed for so many evils that I trust my 
readers will excuse this heated little digression 
from my theme. 

A very natural and a very happy result of 
playing bridge in society has been the abro- 
gation of rules and penalties. Certain rules 
are still, of course, observed. The penalty 
for a revoke is enforced; a misdeal must be 
dealt over; but, in mixed bridge at fashion- 
able houses, nearly all other rules are allowed 
to go by the board. Indeed, in the smartest 
gentlemen's club in New York to-day the 
rules are seldom even referred to. 

This is as it should be. The game Is, after 
all, purely a diversion. You are presumably 
playing with gentlemen — men whose stand- 
ard of honor and behavior is sure to be high. 
They will never try to take advantage of you. 
Rules are made to prevent cheating and un- 
270 



IN SOCIETY 



fair play, but In a lady's house or in a gentle- 
man's club such things are impossible, and, 
as a result of this nice feeling among well- 
bred people, rules are considered unnecessary. 
Players are naturally expected to know the 
conventions of the game, but a strict enforce- 
ment of a penalty is seldom met with. 

Let us take an example. Two gentlemen 
are playing with two ladies. One of the 
ladies has dealt, looked at her hand and care- 
lessly declared hearts, having no hearts in 
her hand and six diamonds. Would any 
gentleman care to insist upon her original 
make when she suddenly discovers her error 
and explains it to her adversaries and part- 
ner? The rule Is that the make stands, but 
who would enforce it? 

Why should a lady not lead out of the 
wrong hand, or touch the cards In her dum- 
my ? She cannot be doing this with any idea 
of cheating. It can only be an error. She 
may be corrected, but she should not be pen- 
alized. 

This matter of a wrong heart declaration 
reminds me of a little anecdote connected 
with a Mr. B., a well-known " ladies' man " 
271 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

In Washington. His Impressive manner, his 
handsome face, his subtle gift of flattery, and 
his romantic nature made him, wherever he 
went, extremely popular with the ladles. 
(One of his victims assured me that he had 
the manners of Prince Demldoff and the as- 
surance of Jesse James.) 

He was dining In Washington at Senator 
D.'s. The dinner was given In honor of Miss 
X., the beautiful niece of the then British 
ambassador. This lady had just arrived 
from England and was known to be a very 
brilliant bridge-player. She had, however, 
no sense of humor and took the game a little 
too seriously. Rumor even went so far as to 
hint that she was the least bit keen about her 
gains and losses. 

As soon as our Adonis sat down at dinner 
his eyes rested with favor upon Miss X., who 
sat directly opposite him at table but who 
was an absolute stranger to him. Never, he 
thought, had he seen anybody so beautiful — 
so worthy of a brave man's love. After the 
cigars he asked to be presented. His open- 
ing was something to the effect that he had 
been unable to eat his dinner because of the 
272 



IN SOCIETY 



perverse and diabolical witchery of her eyes. 
She interrupted this little verbal bouquet by 
asking him if he played bridge, to which 
he replied that if he could be sure of holding 
the queen of hearts, etc., etc. 

" Never mind all that piffle," she said, a 
little tartly. 

After this body-blow they sat down at the 
green cloth table with two friends and cut the 
cards for partners. Ten-cent stakes were 
agreed upon, and Adonis cut Miss X. 

Rolling his eyes in a most dramatic fash- 
ion, he remarked that he was doomed to be 
defeated. The God of Love had so be- 
friended him in the choice of a partner that 
the God of Chance was now certain to treat 
him shamefully. 

"Would you mind dealing?" was Miss 
X.'s icy answer to this florid sally. 

He finished the deal, but, before so much 
as looking at his cards, he leaned over the 
table and said dramatically: "I declare 
hearts. With such a partner they cannot lead 
me wrong." 

He then picked up his cards and found that 
he had dealt himself an absolutely worthless 
273 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

hand, with only one low heart, four low clubs, 
six low diamonds, and the ten, nine of spades. 
The leader promptly doubled and led the 
king of hearts. Miss X.'s dummy went down 
with five honors in diamonds, three small 
hearts and five high spades. 

Adonis was a trifle dismayed but continued 
to smile affably at his partner. " There can 
be no disaster," he seemed to say, " when 
love like ours has blazed the trail." 

After the murder was over and the leader 
had taken six heart tricks and six clubs, and 
scored up a small slam. Miss X., with a de- 
cidedly peeved expression and a slightly acid 
tone, remarked: 

" Mr. B., this is bridge — not a kissing- 
game. I suppose I like a compliment as well 
as most women, but your twenty-dollar sam- 
ple is quite enough for to-night." 

I recently chided a fashionable woman for 
her devotion to bridge. Her answer was 
really illuminating. 

" What else can one do? The wives of the 

poor have so much to occupy their minds 

and hands — washing, ironing, cooking, 

making clothes, dressing their children, and 

274 



IN SOCIETY 



working in a sweat-shop ; but I, alas, can't 
perform these humble labors; they are all 
done for me. My husband leaves at nine 
and returns at six — what am I to do during 
that eternity of time? I'm too fat for tennis; 
I'm afraid of riding in motors; the " beauty " 
doctors won't allow me to eat; my husband 
refuses to permit me to flirt; if I lie down 
and rest I feel myself growing perceptibly 
fatter; cigarettes make me giddy; the cur- 
rent novels are all idiotic; my children are 
at boarding-school, and so, my dear friend, 
I am literally forced to play bridge. Bridge 
Is the rich woman's sweat-shop. We are 
driven to it by a cruel, inexorable fate, just as 
the poor are driven to their sewing-machines. 
As a matter of fact, I hate the game. I 
never play without being urged and — why, 
here comes the Grandolets for tea. How 
lucky ! Now, we'll have some nice quick rub- 
bers before dressing for dinner. Hurry up 
— ring for the table and the cards ! " 

We must give such fair devils as this their 

due. Wc must try always to remember that 

these blessed society ladies of ours are the 

most circumspect and moral women In any 

275 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

large capital of the world. They may be 
idle, extravagant and artificial, but they are 
well behaved and take their boredom with 
fortitude — and without the kindly assistance 
of some dashing male. Let us remember, too, 
that bridge may help to train their intellects, 
tact and judgment. It will, perhaps, culti- 
vate their powers of observation and calcula- 
tion — as far as such a thing is possible with 
mere ladies. 

Boswell once pointed out to Doctor John- 
son the merchants in the city, who were grub- 
bing and grinding and sweating their lives 
away with no other purpose than to amass 
money. 

" Is It not a terrible spectacle? " cried Bos- 
well. 

" Sir," remarked the pompous fat man, 
" men are seldom so worthily employed." 

In like manner when a bitter critic holds 
up his hands in holy horror and points to 
four society women glued to the bridge table, 
as they add up the honor score — with only 
a trifling error or two — and dexterously deal 
the cards with those sensitive, jeweled, taper- 
276 



IN SOCIETY 



ing, manicured fingers of theirs, I am tempted 
to restrain him gently and exclaim : 

" Sir ! I prithee, forbear ! These exotic 
and wayward beings are rarely so powerless 
to do us a mortal mischief." 

It has been said that when a young man 
plays an excellent game of billiards it is a 
proof of a wasted youth. Most ladies of 
fashion play a good game of bridge. Can 
this possibly indicate that our society women 
ought to have more to do, more interests and 
tastes with which to fill up the chinks of their 
luxurious leisure? 

Should their house parties be all bridge? 
Should not music and art and books and 
gardens be allowed some opportunity of be- 
guiling them — as well as the cards ? 

House party bridge ! Heavens ! What 
memories those words bring back to me. 
On the whole I am inclined to agree with the 
Frenchman who took me aside at a large 
house party and said: " In my opinion, it is 
too terrible, this sort of thing. The players 
are, as a rule, either telephoning, or pouring 
tea, or receiving visitors, or playing the 
277 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

pianola, or forgetting the trump, or quarrel- 
ing about the stupidity of their partner, or 
gossiping about some of the characters of 
the countryside, or, worst of all, forgetting to 
settle their account on departure." 

I once heard a New York lady of fashion 
talking to a sympathetic neighbor, and, as her 
conversation was enlightening, I shall quote a 
portion of it. 

" Honestly," she said, " I rue the day that 
bridge was ever invented. It has absolutely 
wrecked the lives of four of my daughters — 
the youngest of them. People talk about the 
pitfalls of drink and cigarettes! What rub- 
bish! These evils may do harm to some 
people, but their dangers are as nothing to 
the ravages which bridge has wrought upon 
my poor darlings. As you know, my dear, 
I have seven daughters — all of them sweet, 
attractive and sympathetic. The three elder 
girls were less good-looking than the other 
four, and yet they all married, and married 
well. Their husbands are prosperous; their 
children are strong; their lives are full of in- 
terest and promise. But the other four are 
still on my hands." 

278 



IN SOCIETY 



"How do you account for It?" said her 
sympathetic neighbor. 

" How do I account for it? Why, bridge, 
of course ! The beastly game wasn't known 
to the older girls. The consequence was that 
they spent their time sensibly and profitably 
— in flirting, dancing, fitting, visiting, going 
to the opera, and promenading the Avenue 
with young men, as all well-bred girls should. 
I brought Margot out in ninety-eight — re- 
sult, one broker. Claire had a wonderfully 
brilliant season in nineteen hundred, and 
what is more, she has a corporation lawyer to 
show for it. In nineteen two my dear little 
Esme made her debut, very quietly, as, at 
that time, we were In mourning for my hus- 
band (her father, you know) and yet, with 
all her handicap of black dresses and small 
dinners and sitting in the back of opera 
boxes, she was calmly working away like the 
beavers or those wriggling coral creatures, 
and building up a great career for herself. 
What happened? She was married in St. 
Bartholomew's. Her husband simply idol- 
izes her and frequently leaves his comfort- 
able club before seven o'clock simply to be 
279 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

with her a little before the children go to bed 
and before the motor comes to take him out 
to his business dinners." 

" Oh, well, the others will marry, too, you 
may be sure." 

" Marry! Not a bit of It! They don't 
want to marry. They prefer to belong to 
bridge clubs and to sit glued for days to those 
wretched green tables, calling out : ' I make 
it without hearts,' ' I declare a Yarborough,' 
' I'll raise you twice,' ' I'll go it without the 
dummy,' ' double slam,' and other idiotic re- 
marks of that sort. I tell you that the game 
has utterly unsexed them. They wouldn't 
know how to flirt if they were to get the 
chance. They are inhuman — lacking in 
every feminine attribute. They can't even 
pass an evening sensibly in a conservatory." 

" Only the other day I said to Fifi : ' Play 
bridge if you must, but don't play it all the 
time. Ask that Archi feller boy to come and 
take you to walk, or to have tea with you, or 
see the animals in the Bronx, or even to go to 
a moving picture theater,' but it was all use- 
less I She prefers bridge. Just think of it! 

" She Is forever sending the servants for 
280 



IN SOCIETY 



the card table and the whole satanic para- 
phernalia of bridge. I'm not joking, really. 
I'm deadly serious ! It's a great expense to 
keep four girls with large appetites and an 
unholy passion for bridge." 

Whether or not this heart-breaking narra- 
tive was a little colored by the fretted mother 
in the telling I am unable to say, but it is 
certain that bridge in New York has, in many 
ways, revolutionized society. One proof of 
this is the admission, into the politest circles, 
of men who would never be tolerated there 
were It not for their skill at the card table 
and their willingness to play for fairly high 
points. 

I have often been amazed of late to see 
how politely certain vulgarians are treated by 
the most sensitive, refined and charming wom- 
en, simply because of their prowess at bridge. 

While I am on this subject I cannot for- 
bear relating a story which, though it sounds 
a little improbable, Is none the less true. 
There is in New York a widow, who divides 
with a dozen other ladies the arduous work 
of leading Its " smart " society. She is very 
beautiful, very accomplished, very rich, and 
281 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

very much sought after. A month or so ago 
she found that she had a free evening at home 
and decided, in the afternoon of the same 
day, to ask in enough people for dinner to 
make up two tables for bridge. 

Now, it must be explained, before wc go 
on with our story, that this sort of dinner in 
New York is usually arranged in part by the 
butler. 

When the butler is told that madamc needs, 
let us say, three extra men to complete the 
revel, he rings up all of the lady's utility 
bachelors, or " nomads," either alphabetically 
or in the order of his personal preferences, 
and, if he is in luck, he may bag a brace be- 
fore he has called up a dozen names. 

On this particular occasion, however, the 
butler's luck was very bad. He had been 
told to secure two bachelors, but he had gone 
through the entire list of twenty deadheads 
and had been ignominously skunked except 
for one " old reliable " who was never in- 
vited anywhere else and could always be de- 
pended upon to appear at any revel, eat 
heartily, join in every burst of laughter, and 
stay until the bitter end. The butler went 
282 



IN SOCIETY 



to madame's maid and begged her to inform 
her mistress that he was " one whole gentle- 
man shy." The maid listened, disappeared, 
and shortly returned. 

" Madame says to telephone and ask Mr. 
Henry Gray, on Fifth avenue. Tell him it 
is most important and madame implores him 
surely to come." 

To the butler Mr. Henry Gray was an en- 
tirely new " nomad." He looked in the 
printed telephone book; saw Mr. Henry 
Gray's name at seventy-five Fifth avenue ; con- 
nected with the gentleman by wire, and unctu- 
ously delivered the message : 

" Mrs. A. Luvveley Creetcher desires to 
know if you will dine with 'er at arf hafter 
hate this evenink." 



Yes, sir; Mrs. Creetcher." 



" At 'er residence, sir, three 'undred hand 
seventy-two Fifth havenoo." 



" I couldn't rightly say, sir, but she says it 
is very himportant and she 'opes as 'ow you 
will chuck every think and come, sir," 
283 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 



" Quite sure, sir. She mentioned your 
name most particular." 

At about twenty minutes before nine Mr. 
Henry Gray was announced in Mrs. Crectch- 
er's cream and gold drawing room. He was 
the first to arrive and found his hostess in a 
Louis XIV chair, alone, before a cheerful 
fire. 

As my intelligent readers have doubtless 
already surmised, the gentleman was the 
wrong Mr. Gray. Instead of looking up Into 
the wistful eyes of the tall, thin, elegant, pale, 
cultivated, mournful Henry Gray — our for- 
mer secretary of legation at London, but now 
a nomad with chambers at the corner of Fifth' 
avenue and Forty-fourth street — she found 
herself shaking hands with the ruddy, plump, 
genial and perspiring Henry Gray, manager 
of the Vulcan Nickel Range Company, of 
Syracuse, with showrooms on the corner of 
Fifth avenue and Fifteenth street. 

Mr. Gray saw that there was some mis- 
take. 

" Your servant said it was very important, 
so I came." 

284 



IN SOCIETY 



" Listen," said the beautiful lady. " I 
shall be hideously frank with you. I meant 
to ask another man, but It was so good of you, 
an absolute stranger, to come, that I Insist 
upon your staying. Will you do It to oblige 
me?" 

"Why! Really, you're very kind, but 
I—" 

" Mr. Gray ! Let me Interrupt you. Do 
you play bridge? " 

" Can a kitten drink milk? But, really, 
I don't think I ought to stay, as I realize 
now — " 

" Mrs. Fuller Frille hand Mrs. Tyson 
Tweedale," announced the pompous butler. 

At about nine o'clock the guests all sat 
down to dinner. 

Mr. Gray, who had been presented to 
everybody, was In fine feather and told sev- 
eral " good ones." After dinner a terrible 
thought occurred to the hostess; could Mr. 
Gray really play bridge? His answer — 
something about kittens — had been enigmat- 
ical, at best. There were only seven if he 
couldn't, and two tables of four If he could. 
Mr. Gray reassured her on this point. 
285 



THE BRIDGE-FIEND 

" What — can I play bridge? Why, I cat 
it with a knife and fork." 

The inevitable tables were sent for and it 
soon became evident that Mr. Gray was a 
wonderful player; full of dash, imagination, 
intuition and daring. The ladies were de- 
lighted with his game. Rarely had they seen 
so brilliant a partner — he was so good-na- 
tured, too, and so cheerful and kind. 

Mrs. Creetcher decided that she would say 
nothing about the little misunderstanding in 
identity to any of her guests. Mrs. Tyson 
Tweedalc, in particular, was so careful about 
meeting " outsiders," it would never do to 
tell her. The joke at her expense would re- 
sound and reverberate all over New York. 
Silence was wisest, after all. 

Mr. Gray is to-day a great diner-out. His 
game, his stories, and his good nature have 
made for him a comfortable place in New 
York society. 

The other evening I was watching him 

play at Mrs. Tyson Tweedale's. He was 

joking and telling stories as usual, when his 

adversary dealt and left it to dummy, who 

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declared no trumps. Gray was the leader 
and picked up the following hand : 

King, jack, 9, 3, of spades; queen, 9, 7, of 
hearts; king, jack, 6, of diamonds; ace, jack, 
2, of clubs. 

Dummy's hand when It went down, con- 
sisted of the queen, 8, 2, of spades; ace, 
king, 5, of hearts; ace, 10, of diamonds; 
king, queen, 10, 9, 6, of clubs. 

Mr. Gray and his partner were ten, and 
their adversaries were twenty-two, on the rub- 
ber game. Gray had led the three of spades ; 
dummy played the eight; third hand played 
the ten and the dealer played a low diamond. 

Third hand had applied the rule of eleven 
and had seen, at once, that the dealer must 
be void of spades, as the dealer's subsequent 
discard of a diamond proved. Third hand 
now returned the four of spades and Gray, 
without an instant's hesitation, and still chat- 
ting happily with the onlookers, played his 
nine, allowing the queen to make in dummy. 

This does not, at first, seem like a phe- 
nomenal exhibition of skill, but, considering 
everything, it was one of the cleverest and 
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quickest plays I have ever seen at the bridge 
table. If my readers will stop to calculate 
they will see that Gray could easily have 
caught the queen in dummy by playing his 
king on the second trick and then leading the 
jack, but such a play would, later on, have 
hopelessly blocked his partner's spade suit 
(with the 9) and he could then be sure of 
only four spade tricks, whereas, by allowing 
the queen to make in dummy, he was certain 
of five spade tricks, as his partner was marked 
with six in the suit. In three seconds Gray 
had apparently noted the following facts: 

(i) He could make five spade tricks by 
allowing dummy the second trick in the suit. 
(2) His partner could have no possible entry 
for his long spade if the suit ever became 
blocked. (3 ) There was no lead that dummy 
could make that would wreck his, Gray's, 
hand. (4) By unblocking his partner's 
spades the rubber could certainly be saved 
and probably won, whereas by blocking it the 
rubber might be saved, but not won. His 
mind seemed very quickly and easily to grasp 
all these things as he continued talking good- 
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naturally to the bystanders. As a result of 
his cleverness, Mr. Gray won his two by cards 
and the rubber. 



THE END. 



289 



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